The Saiyan King
by Favorih
Summary: King Vegeta had words, stories, and a mantle to pass. Paragus had revenge to exact. Lord Frieza had allies to betray. Kakarot had a point to prove. Prince Vegeta was meant to have a kingdom to rule, but instead he has a planet to purge under the name of an intergalactic space Tryrant. [Vegekaka]
1. A Tale from the Summer '32

The Lion King and The Lion Guard, along with its general plot and songs are not owned by me. Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball z and Dragon Ball Super do not belong to me. Each franchise is owned by its respective people and companies.

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 **Trigger warning**

 **This fic includes disturbing and possibly triggering content such as abuse, child manipulation, drugs, violence, manipulation and assault. You have been warned!**

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1

Being a father was hard. Ever since dear, beautiful, harrowing Geden had fallen pregnant, life had been hard. Her eyes, once glittering with battle lust, food lust, and a lust for her favourite 'saiyan friendly beverage', spirytus rektyfikowany, had soon been reduced to glittering with a lust for nothing but her strange fascination with cutesy drapery around their shared bed cove and discovering new ways to make his life very deplorable. She made a new hobby out of switching Lord Glatagus' clear vitamin concentrate with sailor vodka, and made fun of his own disliking for fish.

Fish had no arms, no legs, they simply levitated themselves around with little eldritch eyes through the devoid blackness of a reality in which no mere mortal could breath! Though Geden became exceedingly pestilent when with-child, as he considered her personality, he realised that the exotic female had always been a sadist. She had always mocked his fear of the finny-things. She laughed with an honest-to-God smile on her face when he found three common breams wheezing in his boot, (he was certain that she had put them there) and she had purchased a black caracal named Guppy. They both regretted buying Guppy. Not once in the three years of their ownership over it had they seen it sleep. They had made an unspoken agreement against maiming or permanently removing Guppy from their presence because it looked like the type of creature that would find and terrorise you indefinitely, even in death.

Though he and Geden had agreed to keep away from the potential poltergeist that was Guppy, they hadn't always been able to read each other's minds, and they certainly hadn't always gotten along. The first time they met was during an evening service commemorating the War of Black Water, which the saiyans had deemed the final defeat of the Tuffles all those generations ago. No one really talked about the Tuffles any longer. Geden had been sold to a greedy Lord's son as a trophy courtesan, but she decked her 'owner' in the face and booked it. He, who had stormed away from a disagreement with his father, had ran into her while sulking in a verdigris alleyway.

He fell in love with her at first sight. She was sexy in both will, mind and body, and he found himself admiring her. Betas, male or female, had no authority over alphas as ancient law stated they were unfit to hold such an honour. They were owned by either their sires, the family patriarch, or finally their mates, yet this seemingly incapable third-class had defiled all that was written in her rights because she refused to allow herself to be controlled. She was also the first saiyan strong enough to injure him. She had broke his knee and disassembled most of his ribs.

All would soon change, however, as Geden's once lithe, curvaceous figure had swelled to support the small Ki flaring within, though King Vegeta was sure he could feel that strangely familial life force harden and expand at the hour. He was both proud and unsettled, because sometimes he would awake at night to a huge, sizzling burn in his cranium, suggesting a huge and unnaturally fast-rising power source was present. If he ever resorted to using his scouter as an alarm or simply leaving it on during the night, it would implode in on itself whenever these strange episodes occurred. A faraway part of his mind had always been weary that maybe the strange power pulses were related to Guppy.

He really didn't think Guppy was a caracal.

Sometimes he found himself wishing he was once again a young lad. Though he didn't age much physically, when all was quiet and he couldn't quell himself into the gentle grip of sleep once more he would let his mind drift to better places. He would imagine crunching sand grit between his toes, with fingertips pruned from a long day flying through clear blue oceans, over cavalcades of vibrant coral growth. He would then enjoy dawns of beachside views and complimentary pina coladas. Geden would stand by his side, laughing so hard her cheeks would be swelled with strain and his heart would be strained with joy. By nightfall they would bathe in moonlit knolls, listening to both the distant ebbing shore break and the sound of their voices. They would talk about their dreams, what they hoped for, what they hated. They'd talk about his future as King, and hers as queen, and they'd fall in love all over again.

King Vegeta always found himself fearing that his beloved Geden would perish during childbirth, but luckily, that had not been the case. Despite this, when her heart stopped beating for those few moments she had been giving birth to their cub, he had felt his world stop, and had almost crumbled at the news of his mate's temporary cardiac arrest. It was at that moment where he had stopped denying to himself that they were together only for sexual reasons and that she was literally the stitching that sowed the fabric of his reality together.

Yet, when his eyes fell upon that small body nestled unorthodoxy in his queen's arms, Vegeta really had felt that maybe, even if being a father was hard, it really was worth it in the end.

Wiping the sweat gathered on his brow and breathing in deeply until he felt as though his lungs had sponged up enough air to begin to burn, King Vegeta turned to the tiny, snoozing infant wiggling contentedly in Geden's slim yet powerful arms. His mate was smiling faintly, and his child was smirking relatively pleasantly, probably dreaming about violent hit man movies. Guppy's silhouette could be spotted amongst the luscious drapery. He was staring at the wall. Vegeta realised that life was perfect right now, and he also realised that he must be seriously drunk in his sleep deprivation if he was admitting that to himself. Life was too perfect to care, he realised, and while he was still thinking it over, he fell asleep.

2

"Did you hear, did you hear? All heed my yell, warriors, for the Prince his here!"

"After all this time- the Prince is finally born? I must see this for my self!"

"The Prince? How wonderful,"

"Brother, stop hurrying, must we get a good spot in the crowd?"

"Oh come now, of course we must! I want to see the young Prince!"

"The Prince, the Prince, the young Prince!"

There were many voices calling this one, claret dawn, some nasally, some husky, some scratchy, some heavy and some light. They came from bodies of power and of lithify, of youth and of age. They came from statures of nobility and crumbles of the third class, each character's yelling voice as diverse as the one that would call after, yet they all still called in celebration of a new era.

They rushed through posh street-sides and they hurried past homes, they cantered through the air like unleashed reindeer and they slithered through the urban valley like ferrets. The touring Yardrats filed from their hermitages, and the Clawfores flitted, tittering jollily from the banks. The Arlian's buzzed like beetles through the masses, tunics and cloaks fitted around their thoraxes to shelter themselves from the chilly morning breeze, and the Namekians docilely padded from their touring pods, carrying bassinets of Amaranth, Angrec and Amaryllis to pay tribute to the new heir.

The most prominent of the rushing masses were the Saiyans, shoving, yipping, speeding through the crowd in an anticipating, competitive manner. Their shoulder's were a flowerbed of scars, their hair a black-vaulted garth of wild locks, and each of their faces was alit with excitement. With their superior speed and agility, the Saiyans were able to manoeuvre towards the gates of a towering keep, it's doors hanging open like slack jaws.

Before the few lucky ones at the front of the crowds stood a magnificent sight; a flowing pillar of superiority bellowing like a crescent of light up to the heavens. The castle of the Vegetas stood before them, as mighty as the dynasty it cradled in it's craggy arms. Flags ribboned in the air and huge curtains of sheeny titanium hissed at any of the ill intended. Steeple tips as tall as mountain-tables were partly submerged in the clouds, and bottles of windows allowed only the briefest of peeks of deep, velvety curtains and hammocks of banners spiderwebbed from obelisks and spiralling columns. The palace was fit for a god, but all eyes were trained intently upon the elongated veranda swaddled around the largest of the towers.

"Look there, at the castle!"

"Oh my, what a sight!"

A sea of giddy, sun soaked faces drowned the ground from visible sight, whinnying like ponies and cackling like old men until a sacred, familiar sight piped up from seemingly nowhere. Like he was a plague, all parted until a carpet of access was presented before odd man, and onward moved quite the sight. He had spindly thin legs that looked as though they might snap as he moved, hobbling along stickily yet with an infectious, jovial twist. His face was as sunken as an old boot, and his long, spidery arms flailed around so loosely that one could read the wrinkles of his elbows. The fingers of his left hand reached up to adjust his unbecoming red sunglasses, which glinted in the light, while his right hand clutched at his wooden cane. All hailed with awe as Master Roshi trudged closer and closer to the palace. If you were looking to define his personality, it would be made clear when he, upon reaching the end of his walk of fame, twisted around to face the crowd and present to them a good-willed peace sign.

He disappeared into the castle.

He would soon find that the palace's majestical insides could not be seen as calm, with maids, drudges and servants scurrying around, all sweaty and fraughting, and with guards numbly and grim-faced as scribes each time a sudden noise was heard or an unpredictable movement was detected. They gripped stiffly at their spears and daggers until both their combatant implements and their palms were bruised. Roshi already missed his beachside views and his complimentary pina coladas.

All his worries dissipated when he had reached the higher levels of the castle and his eyes fell upon the little bundle of innocence and infant-like jubilance casketed within Queen Geden's arms. She and King Vegeta greeted him with knowing smiles and he thought that their cheeks were puffy and reddened from smiling so much. He also thought that the image of King Vegeta smiling was so unnatural it made him uncomfortable.

He nodded to them, for once ducking under the royal consort's chin to fetch the baby instead of reach for her chest. Said baby, much like his father, had long, thick strands of an identifiable windows peek, but a youthful fringe spilled over his large forehead which was quite unlike the receding hairline of his father. Roshi clucked when the new prince blinked his big, goggly eyes open, cautious to the pressure of the light, and laughed at the old master's goofiness.

With the reining King and Queen behind him, Roshi and his precious cargo strode forward, the golden gates of the palace's main balcony separating them from the watching eyes of the kingdom all but gone when the equerries pulled them agape. Roshi didn't squint at the sudden pulses of light that flooded the room. Prince Vegeta did.

With the baby settled in his arms and the royal couple nuzzling each other at the doorway, barely making themselves seen, Roshi walked forward, presenting both himself and the future ruler to the world. With two steps the gathered masses crowed in delight and joy, laughed in jest and dipped their heads in respect. Within eight steps the Namekians had raised their home-woven bassinets of offerings to the sky, and the hollering had ascended to levels that made his ears pop. As he reached the lip of the deck, adjusted his hold on the baby saiyan and reached out, dangling him over the kingdom, his kingdom, a whole nation dropped to their knees in veneration for him, a mere child of only two days.

The past looked upon the future, and it was bright.

3

The soggy brown sewer rat zipped cautiously from it's little cove, which consisted largely of a peeling crack in the beige wall. It tested the air with it's little, twitching nose, and, satisfied with the results, wallowed forward much like a rolling shallot. It stiffened for a short moment, ears twitching, before bringing it's pink pads to its face and nuzzling it's own thumb-plump head. It didn't get very far.

A calloused, clawed hand slammed it's force down on the rodent's far less durable body, letting it squirm in vain for a moment before lacing it's tail within his fingers and lifting it up to become level with his narrowed eyes. It squawked and shuttered as it twitched, suspended in the air.

"Life's not fair, is it?" His shallow eyes drooped with contemplation. "You see I shall never be King," he crooned, watching as his snagged prey crawled about his fingers skittishly, and he moved his claws accordingly to support it's trek. "And you shall never see the light of day, hmm?" He droned with an exaggerated shrug, snatching the mouse once more with his claws and gathering enough Ki to incinerate a fat tree stump on his fingertips.

"Didn't your mother ever tell you not to play with whatever you found alive and kicking on the ground?" A snobbish voice cut through to him. With a flat expression the sadist cupped the little creature crushingly in his hand, long, curvaceous nails acting as taunting cage bars to it's makeshift cell. It was so close to an unreachable freedom.

"What do you want?" He rolled his one reptilian eye.

"I'm hear to announce that King Vegeta is on his way," The large, burly advisor bowed, his smooth bald head glinting in the light leaking into the cave. "So you better have a good excuse for missing the ceremony this morning," He added pointedly, sending his company a tight lipped gaze as he retreated from his formal position and assuming a far less formal one.

"Oh now look, Nappa, you made me lose my friend," The portly rat once imprisoned by his claw-like hands had squeezed away, fleeing into it's receding crevasse, fat tail swaying along with it's body. The one-eyed saiyan gave Nappa a deflated scowl.

"Hah! You'll lose more then that when the King gets through with you!" The dry humour in Nappa's voice was clear as he leaned richly on his heels. "He's as mad as a super saiyan!" He sniffed self-importantly, eyes fluttering closed as he gave a factual nod.

"Oooh, I quiver with fear," the dark saiyan hissed forward, voice rasping and nefarious as he twisted his body to properly face his company, shoulders twisting with feline like grace.

He grinned meanly as Nappa's eyes widened. "Now Paragus, don't look at me that wayyy-Aargh!" Nappa rushed to avoid an onslaught of small, zapping Ki blasts that were sent careening his way from their former perch upon Paragus' unclipped fingertips. One of the blasts scored an oozing slice upon the advisor's cheek when a deep, angry voice defused the situation.

"Paragus..." It drawled, promising hurt from a beast that had been hurt himself. Paragus froze.

"Impeccable timing, your majesty," Nappa reached into his petticoat and pulled free a handkerchief from his tufted collar, dabbing it across his cheek crossly while Paragus rolled his shoulders uncaringly.

"Why... If it isn't my big brother, descending from up high to mingle with the commoners," he wheezed sweetly, greeting his kin halfway as the King strode into his room, plush, red carpet and gold tapestries glittering around the two siblings and their confrontation. Paragus' words sounded as though they were squeezed from his throat.

King Vegeta was frowning darkly, brows furrowed. "Geden and I didn't find you at the presentation of Prince Vegeta." He growled, spearing Paragus with his glower. Paragus slunk away to the far wall, which was decorated with rips in the paint and verdigris, face twisted in mock shame.

"Oh, that was today?" He arched his back, clapping his tensed hands atop the wall warningly, his tail, fizzling like smoke from a bonfire that had just had a fish tank of water pored upon it. "I feel simply awful," he grit, dragging his nails cloyingly down the ruins of the wall and adding another set of scratch marks. Nappa recoiled at the assaulting noise resonating throughout the room. Both brothers were left unfazed. "Must've slipped my mind,"

"Yes, well, as slippery as your mind is, as the King's brother you should have been first in line!" Nappa inquired with multiple unidentifiable hand gestures. Paragus clicked his jaw warningly at the advisor's antics, quickly reminding him which of the two was stronger.

"Well I was first in line-" Nappa retreated to the safety of being tucked behind King Vegeta, nervously fiddling with his stringy moustache. "Until the little hairball was born," Paragus sneered, only to be greeted with a warningly furcating rise in his brother's Ki. King Vegeta stepped forward and gathered the neck of his brother's toga, lifting him to his toes due to their difference in build. Paragus uttered not a sound as he was was pulled closer.

"That little hairball is my son, and your future king," he stressed, frown deepening as his brother pulled away from his grip lightly.

"Oh ha-ha, shall I practice my curtsy?" He did as mentioned with a curl of his pinkie finger. The scar on his left eye twitched, but his voice was airy and fruity. With lidded eyes he slid past his brother, heading for the exit to his large, spacious sweep, tail swaying behind him like an unsaid insult.

"Don't turn your back on me, Paragus," King Vegeta's eyes followed his brother's back retreating back, voice demanding and heavy.

"No Vegeta, perhaps you shouldn't turn your back on me?" He let the question hang in the air, continuing his leisurely stroll. King Vegeta bound forward faster than the naked eye could trace, dark, bulging black eyes wishing many untold curses.

The reining King roared, and Paragus was reminded just what made a King a King. An unknown force rustled his brother's chalky hair, electricity melting off his singed skin. Vegeta's maw was curled back into a threatening snarl, baring his razor blade fangs and Paragus felt glistening spittle land upon his bottom lip. "Was that a challenge?"

The sadistic saiyan, though taken aback at first by his brother's advance, quickly controlled his visible surprise. All that remained to be seen was a slight tightness around the lips and eyes.

"Oh temper, temper," Paragus scolded his brother. "I wouldn't dream of challenging you," he emphasised with a play of his lips, drunk on the excitement of getting his kin so riled up.

"Pity, why not?" Jabbed Nappa as always, popping the 'P' for added effect. The Lord spared him a nefarious, long side eye.

"Well, as far as brains go, I've got the 'saiyan's' share," he turned back to his brother appraisingly with an estranged look in his eyes. "But when it comes down to brute strength-" he slunk away slyly, removing himself from King Vegeta's proximity. "I'm afraid I'm at the shallow end of the gene pool." The mumbled self-deprecatingly, and Vegeta wondered how much of it was real. Paragus left the conversation at those ominous words, disappearing down the maze-like halls of the palace.

Nappa sighed. "There's one in every family, sire," he assured, slapping his King's back with his large hand. "Two in mine," he added grudgingly, but willed himself not to think about the subject of his family. "And they always manage to ruin special occasions," King Vegeta sighed, lost in thought.

"What am I going to do with him?"

"He'd make a very handsome throw rug,"

"Nappa!"

"And just so you know, every time it gets dirty, you can take it out and beat it!"

The pair had entered that room as king and servant, but had left as chatting friends.

4

"Ah, yes sire, I do believe I forgot to mention your get-together with Doctor Bardock. Said he had something quite important to say for himself. Probably some weird doctor stuff." Nappa listed off looking around the bustling marketplace they had found themselves sauntering through. King Vegeta always had an odd fascination with the old third class marketplaces, though he had always assumed it was related to a certain fondness the King had mustered for the the unlikely fruits one could find in places where you least expect it. He had met his mate there after all.

King Vegeta's eyes widened with recognition. "That old man- heard he had a second child recently. He's one of my old childhood friends, I should go pay him a visit soon, anyway." The King nodded the affirmative, and a quick glance around was all it took for him to identify Doctor Bardock's house, for if was very tall and identifiable. Bardock was quite the wealthy man due to all his medical, technological and Ki-offence breakthroughs. He had revolutionised the Planet Trade Organisation with his artificial moon, allowing Saiyans to undergo the legendary transformation of the Oozaru at will. They no longer had to wait for the appropriate lunar cycles of the planets they invaded.

"Indeed, sire. If I'm correct his name is Kakarot. The ripest fruits of the grapevine is that he was born with a power level of seven-thousand. Less than the little Prince's but far higher than that of usual elite offspring," Nappa complemented, and King Vegeta laughed, high on the excitement of meeting such a long time friend once more.

He could recall the mischief they had gotten into together quite clearly, weather it be to escape their problems and responsibilities or to simply appreciate having company. He new he could always trust Bardock. As a child he had been betrayed of his time, money and effort by a-many who had offered false friendship. Bardock had been different, and the fact that the special friendship they had fostered over the years was beginning to frizzle into the distance was something tragic. He new when to rekindle his ties, as trust was so hard to find in another these days. Saiyans had grown far to overbearing and fixed to focus on something as socially adept as friendship, after all. They had forgotten the impact a true ally could have on your life, wether it be to motivate yourself or to have someone to lean on when times happen to be tougher than usual.

The small trip to Bardock's house had been one of pleasant banter, though the King and his right hand man would stop occasionally to admire the scenery. Planet Vegeta may not have been the greenest, most leafy of planets, and it's red, foreboding atmosphere way have been quite unwelcoming to some, but there truly was a morbid beauty in everything. Prince Vegeta simply wished the lower classes in the streets would stop bowing and cowering in his shadow as he passed by them.

Once they had arrived, Bardock had been quick to let them in, and they were greeted with quite the pleasant, humble homage for someone as plentiful as Bardock. The doctor's mate, Gine, was nowhere to be seen, but little Raditz was flitting about the sweep like a little grasshopper, clad in basic trainee armour and stuffing in his suitcase three pairs of differentiating socks that he had pulled out from behind the dining quarter's island. The tyke looked to the visitors with surprise, quickly bowing before trotting up towards the old family friend of his father's.

"Hey your majesty! Guess where I'm goin' tomorrow," Raditz yipped in a typical thick streeted accent. When he was a couple years younger the King had visited quite frequently, as did Nappa. He quickly brightened at the sight of the advisor. He had always admired the huge soldier. "Hey Nappa, I could use your advice for something, actually!" He added, stuffing a croissant he had snuck in the chest plate of his armour into his packaging. Bardock rolled his eyes, but ushered his two old friends in instead of questioning his first born son's gluttony.

King Vegeta reached forward and rustled the tween's huge mane of hair. "So, where are you going, brat?" The King prodded with a majestical air, though he supposed he had a good idea. Raditz beamed, puffing his chest out proudly, awkward puberty arms flailing around his suitcase's handle.

"I'm going to my very first warrior camp! And I'm going off-planet, too, to kick some serious alien ass!" Raditz whooped, and Nappa leaned in with a gasp that caused the younger to start.

"Oh you will need my advice on this!" He hooted, recalling his experiences and mistakes at the familiar youth discipline camp. "You'll need all the help you can get, you poor bastard. How about we get a quick spar in before you take off tomorrow? If Lady Nattl is still ring leading there you need to have a perfect stance," he hurried the young alpha out the door and for a small while Bardock and the King sat in silence.

"Hah! God, Raditz is gonna have a bad time if Lady Nattl is still there," Bardock hooted, recalling his brief time spent at the camp as well.

King Vegeta smiled. "So, second son, huh? You really are becoming an old man," he snickered, and immediately Bardock burst into the conversation.

"Sorry, could you repeat that? I'm not good at understanding you elites' posh accents, so I might be able to read the wrinkles in your huge-ass forehead if you speak with enough expression," King Vegeta sneered at his old friend's comeback, about to retort when Bardock popped a hatchet in the side-table before his couch with an audible 'click'. Out with his wrist he pulled two seemingly innocent bottles of a slightly oily clear liquid. It had 'SUNSET RUM' plastered upon it's glassy face in pretty writing. "But- I've had enough children to know that it's hard work. You'll need this, lad." Not bothering with shot glasses, Bardock slid the Sunset Rum over to his chap. King Vegeta accepted graciously.

"I always liked the way you think, Bardock. Also, 'lad'?" Vegeta hummed, popping off the cork and taking a large swig of the alcoholic beverage. He wasn't usually one to drink his problems away, but sometimes he needed an escape from his impossible brother.

"You're just jealous because you can't make the word 'lad' not sound forced in a sentence," Bardock took a swig of his own. "I haven't had proper sleep in days, Kakarot-I'm sure Nappa informed you of him already- never stops crying. Hours and hours, day in and day out, like a true saiyan and like a true brain tumour, so I'm going to go straight to business."

King Vegeta raised his eyebrow in question. "On with it then. I suppose we can just pretend I asked about how Gine's doing and if all is in good health," Bardock didn't react to the sarcastic statement, but steadied the King's Sunset Rum before he could down another large dose.

"Stay sober for this part," He growled. "Kakarot is a beta, a powerful one at that. You know, submissive genes and all, and I'd rather arrange a suitable mate for him before word gets out. You know the population of bets are dwindling. Prince Vegeta needs a mate to rule with and carry on the Vegeta dynasty, and as a beta Kakarot really has no rights to refuse," He grunted in one go. King Vegeta blinked, letting the words settle in.

"Wow, you're really not beating around the bushes, are you?" King Vegeta looked taken aback, before drawing a hand to his chin. "I suppose a suitable mate your Kakarot would be, though if he's even half as stubborn as you are-' he rolled his eyes and Bardock scoffed unappreciatively. King Vegeta reached his hand out.

"'Lad', I think we have a deal."

"...'Lad'?"

"Shut up, Bardock."

5

The rain chimed like bells against Roshi's roof, settling a pleasant rhythmic tune to wrap up his noon. For a long while he had been sat at his window, contemplative. At first he had been reminiscing about his day. It was quite a nice day.

He had mingled with his thousands of snivelling, adoring fans, been granted the great honour of presenting little Prince Vegeta to the kingdom and talked with some pretty betas on the way home. He had even discovered that Gine and Bardock had given life to another child, this time a beta, who he wassure would be a fine specimen when he came of age. Roshi didn't blame them for wanting another child, anyway. Raditz was a... Unique kid.

Not to mention, the more betas the merrier. If he had lived for three hundred years already he could live for eighteen more.

With a sudden intake of applejack from the mug he clutched surely in his hand, Roshi ambled over to pull a mottled, bottle-green turtle shell from underneath a coalesce of tapes and old programs, skipping outside of his beached cottage. With a quick fizzle of Ki from his sickly thin fingers, he returned inside with a rather queer looking coconut and a pile of rusty red saw dust. All it took was a quick swipe of his fingers and across the flippant turtle shell danced the sketch of a rather cute looking Prince Vegeta.

"...Yes... A fine King he will be!" The rain continued to clap.

6

Prince Vegeta growled as he leapt over yet another maggoty drudge, this time one with a silver platter of baklavas and her company, a snivelling Arlian who was scampering after her with it's arms full of cutlery and chalices. Even after all these years of having the strange insect-like beings filing around him Prince Vegeta was still left unable to decipher between their genders. Deciding he did indeed deserve a treat, he squashed his grabby hand into the assembly of delectable treats the drudge had gathered on her platter and pulled away with two baklavas and a quarter, slightly dissatisfied at how they had done little to sate his hunger. The startled squeaks of the maid fell upon death ears as all staff continued hurrying about, sprits and spits of greetings and minor dues tumbling out of their mouths.

He didn't return their pleasantries as they were below him, instead bounding through the tinted halls of the palace and up a velvety flight of stars. He used his glove to wipe away the baklava's treacly blood from the corner of his mouth. As his mother drilled on, it was unbecoming of a prince to have fluid spillage dripping down his chin. He scowled, because she had stopped that drilling ever since that anthracnose Tarble was born two weeks ago. The stupid little mealworm was so weak they had him scheduled to be sent off to some estranged back-water planet. Vegeta ignored the pang in his heart, instead opting to summersault over a particularly stunned chambermaid, who stumbled so clumsily she spilt her cartilage of crimson veils all over the floor. No one dared reprimand him, however.

After twisting and spiralling down so many corridors, one may think little Vegeta would get lost, but he had simply traversed through them such a goggling amount of times he had the layout all mapped out in his memory. The halls were relatively quiet and empty once he had entered the seclusion of the Royal chambers, the early morning keepers having done their job far before even the most negligible of daylight had trickled through, so Vegeta was quite alone and free to move as fast as necessary.

When the familiar battalion of guards surrounding his father's chambers had touched both his eyesight and his nose, (they smelled quite unpleasant, like salt, sweat and distant alcohol), and the leering presence of his parent's room's double-doors could be seen, Prince Vegeta could only feel a well-disguised excitement rise up his throat and light a candle in his eyes. Seeming to sense his emotions, the guards wisely trudged out of his way, allowing a clear collision course.

With a mighty crash the two doors swung open, spinning off their hinges and imbedding themselves into the claret walls on either side of them. Grubby, the families rather disturbing family pet yowled with suprise and seemed to disintegrate for a small moment before taking off down the halls. Not deterred by the slightest, Prince Vegeta stumbled and toddled through his father's plush, buoyant carpet as though it were filled with air, clipping the door keg and the table corners and knocking the candleholder amiss on it's mantle hazardously. He sniffed fondly at the scented air; it was filtered with vitamins and depleted of poison and pollution, as fresh as that from a moist tropical climate that Vegeta-sei sorely lacked.

"Father! Father! Wake up father, we gotta go!"

The Prince almost wanted to scowl. The kingdom was constantly so hot that at times he found it hard to participate in events and concentrate on his schooling. The traditional spandex of the saiyans didn't help, what with how tight it was. Despite its practical flaws, Vegeta wore his garbs with pride. The deep blue, pearly white chest plate, authoritative, majestic shoulder guards and his billowing red cape. Many would have thought that the cape was his favourite element of clothing, when in actuality it was the Royal crest of Vegeta emblazoned proudly upon his chest. It made him feel apart of something.

Before he could ponder on his fashion sense any longer, Vegeta had reached the body of his parents' bed. He wasted no time in jumping upon it, rolling around stuffily on the sheets that rather aggressively netted around him until he was perched upon his father's shoulders, pulling at the King's mane of thick, rustic locks and slapping at his nose. "Father, father-"

Geden scrunched her nose cutely, big eyes blinking open serenely from her place next to her mate. "My King, I believe there's someone here for you," by now King Vegeta had also awaken, but he kept his eyes closed in hope that the bee hovering fuzzily around his tired face would buzz away. He hid his face in his pillow.

"-father, father- dad, dad dad dad-"

"Before sunrise he's your son," King Vegeta pushed away his responsibilities like a most apt father should.

"Daaad, come on, father-" Prince Vegeta had resorted to pulling at his father's ear, and after a few tugs the King was sure his son would be willing to pull it off in order to garner his attention. "Grr, dad- whoa-" Finally Prince Vegeta had tumbled away, losing his grip on the auditory organ he had trusted all his weight to. Vegeta's back hit the floor with a cushioned thud. He then retaliated with a hard elbow to his sire's head. King Vegeta blinked owlishly at the blaze assault, turning to meet his son's quickly enlarging pupils. "You promised," Vegeta's voice came out as a stern growl, but the King could shrewdly detect traces of desperation.

"Ok ok, I'm up, I'm up," The King of all saiyans witnessed his son's demeanour change from anger to accomplishment. He suddenly felt as though he had played right into his cub's hand. With a final yawn that limbered his jaw, and a content sigh from his mate, who had rolled over to rub noses with their youngest child in the cot besides their bed, King Vegeta followed his son to the balcony connected to their sweep.

A small smile graced his face when his eyes met the sight of his sedated kingdom, the pink, lazy sky proving to be a breathtaking sight when in contrast to the wondrous simplicity of a jungle of pods and capsule cottages, wide, gaping communal sparring centres and the distant jetting drone of the airships from the hangar a little way away behind the palace. Little potted gardens dotted the streets of the lower class, sand dunes of sun-baked grit as tall as the castle resting like sleeping giants in the far-off distance.

Beside him his beautiful mate Geden had come to stand, nuzzling his cheek for a small moment before settling her eyes upon their kingdom. A wistful intake displayed her appreciation for the sight; ever since the infant tucked away snoring snottily in her arms was born she had been to tired to wake up at such a winding sight. It was a shame, she used to tell him, that the most beautiful times of day lasted only a fraction of the two that merged to make it. It was a shame, he used to reply with, that the two of them still hadn't merged to create their own most beautiful stage. That had been the line that had won her over.

Not particularly fascinated with the sky or it's cavalcade of wisteria, Vegeta had galloped forward until he rested boldly at the highest, furthest point of the balcony, where so many years ago his corination had taken place. Vegeta scoffed at touchy feelings, however, and chose not to dwell on fuzzy pleasantries of the past. He actually had an issue with being dangled over a hundred foot drop by a possible pedophile who had arms about as thin as his singular strands of hair.

He watched silently until the once weak morning daze had been bathed in an enchanting golden glow. He almost didn't realise King Vegeta was beside him when his father's resonating voice pierced his mulling.

"Look, Vegeta, everything the light touches, is our Kingdom," King Vegeta's eyes followed the horizon, and did not make an effort to meet the prince's as Vegeta gazed at him.

"A king's time as ruler rises and sets like the sun. One day, Vegeta, the sun will set on my time here, and will rise, with you, as the new King," the King turned to his cub, eyes unreadable yet telling.

Vegeta breathed, overwhelmed. "This will all be mine?" The prince had moved from his position to get a better look at the view, experimentally pacing around the tip of the veranda and taking in the sight of his kingdom in a new light. All the respect, all the power, all the glory of ruling the universe- all his? "Everything the light touches... What about that shadowy place?" Sometimes at night Vegeta would gaze up at the starry, nebulae cloak of the blackened sky and his gaze would meet a barren, barely noticeable wasteland at the far right of the kingdom. It looked so lonely. Vegeta didn't know why it was so abandoned because it seemed like a cool sparring terrain, with no weaklings, gatherings, civilians or structures to get in your way.

"Saiyans do not speak of that place anymore. You must never go there, Vegeta." The little prince hid the fact that he was a little taken aback at the urgency in his father's voice, hiding it with a surge of defiance.

"But I thought a king can do whatever he wants?"

The king's expression softened. "Well there's more to being king than getting your way all the time," With a flick of his cape, King Vegeta leapt into the air, a burning sensation of Ki erupting like pallid fire around him and Prince Vegeta readily followed suit.

"There's more?" He blinked, incredulous. Being King sounded frustrating. At least the air between his arms and the wind blowing through his hair helped to ease the building frustration, as being king was quickly declining from a position of power and reverence to hard, boring work that would distract him from his training.

"Everything you see exists together in a delicate balance," King Vegeta began, landing amidst the loose streets. They were ghostly and quiet during the early hours of the morning, but if one strained their ears hard enough they may catch the distant huffs and grunts from the pupils sparring pads. Warriors generally go up early to train. The laboured groans became ever more apparent as they neared the training wing of the elite and first class segments. "As King you need to understand that balance, and respect all the creatures, from the crawling ant, to the mightiest of your enemies," King Vegeta emphasised, the two of them, once in the training wing, shifting into their own private gravity chambers. Neither the King nor prince began their usual sessions.

"But father, don't we vaporise our enemies?" Vegeta crowed, not getting the point. All those who stood against the might dynasty of Vegeta deserved the most humiliating and dreadful of deaths, though he did agree with the part about them being equal to the ants that usually haunted the kitchens.

"Yes, Vegeta, but let me explain. Who, if not the strongest of our foes, will challenge us to surpass our limits and grow stronger?" The King raised his eyebrows pointedly. Vegeta opened his mouth but clipped it shut, instead opting to drop to the ground and stretch his legs and back. He relished in the releasing of tension and the cracking bones that stretching before training bought him. "And so we are all connected in the great law of the warriors,"

"Good morning sire!" A familiar voice clocked, and in swooped a jolly Nappa, his husky, loopy voice slapping the slightly tense atmosphere of a now-gone moment. Vegeta smirked and King Vegeta's shoulders loosened.

"Morning Nappa," The King greeted friendlily. Nappa settled his bulky body infront of the King where he could properly be addressed, patting down his flexible chest plate and clearing his throat. He offered Prince Vegeta a nod that the narrow eyed-cub slowly returned, though with notably less enthusiasm. Nappa payed it no mind, focussing back on his boss.

"Just checking in with the morning report," Advisor Nappa added a curt bow to his combo and King Vegeta nodded.

"Fire away,"

"Well, the buzz from the bees it that the Namekians are in a bit of a spot," The advisor popped.

"Oh?"

Immediately, Prince Vegeta tuned himself out of the conversation, padding leisurely to the control panels and, with an expert play of fingers, activated a small cornucopia of insect-like drones, which buzzed around with a distinctive hum. He would have prepared for his usual round of unzipping saibamen guts onto the floor with overly heightened gravity but he would rather not for a multitude of reasons. Stealth practice would have to do.

"Yes! That's why they're crawling around the place like buzzards! Cookomba and his leading team of Sector C have returned from their latest conquest in the far west quadrant, ran into little trouble there, expected from the bloody third class, though I believe they may have-"

With a dwindling amount of effort, Vegeta lowered his Ki to a barely detectable volume and slithered gracefully around the attuned prevision of the drones, taking each one out with a small blast of a basic Ki formula he learnt in his second lesson ever with his father.

"-eft the planet alive! They just let it be! You know why we don't terrorise planets but leave them with a living population? Because than we leave them alive with revenge cooking up diminutional plots of revolt in their minds and a taste of what power is possible to achieve. You know what happens then? They become Saiyans! And honest to god the universe doesn't need another race like us-"

A, he would admit, slightly over-dramatic blast, had caught the attention of his father. "What are you doing son?" King Vegeta whispered quickly, a silly smile posted upon his face as he watched his cub weave expertly away from the expanded senses of the stealth drones with a zeal many his age would be unable to replicate. Prince Vegeta really was a prodigy.

"Blasting-" He shrugged in response, a flick of his hand dismembering the last of the drones. He wasn't able to sigh in disappointment because his father introduced him to a much more interesting version of target practice.

"Better show the pro how it's done-" The King began, a humorous edge to his voice that got the little prince bumbling with anticipation.

"-etter watch their power growth. If such a strange, unapt race can even begin to graze the strength of a more advanced saibaman! Gotta keep them in line before-"

"Nappa, can you turn around?'

"-yes sire- before they begin to get over confidant-"

"Stay low to the ground..." King Vegeta steadied his son's shoulders, and Vegeta's eyes narrowed in on his target with concentration.

"Then they'll never prosper-" Nappa, suddenly suspicious, craned his head to peer at his company. "What's going on?" He snipped.

"A precision lesson,"

"Oh, very good, precision." Nappa whisked back around, nose in the air and swaying in approval, before his eyes widened in revelation. "Precision?! You- no sire, you can't be serious- ooh-" He wailed in despair, but, with a smug grin on his face, King Vegeta only replied to his close comrade's suffering with a revolving motion of his hands. "-this is so humiliating-"

"Try not to make a sound,"The King whispered in his son's ear, who had one hand up and trained on the Royal advisor's back. The Prince was sure he heard said advisor whine and wail some more, but otherwise the world had drowned out around him. The chirping of the songbirds and finches, the rush of the blood pulsing through his veins- it had all just washed away like an ebbing tide. All that was left was him and a certain, armour-clad back.

"-ooh I never should have- ever since I signed up for this my Saiyan pride has been as far away as a Saiyan is from heaven-what are you telling him, King Vegeta? Vegeta? Young Prince?" All was silent.

With a quick whoosh Prince Vegeta's Ki blast had imbedded itself deep into the crevasse of Nappa's back, bending him uncomfortably like a twig. Nappa yowled as he was propelled strongly into the door of the Royal training chambers, and for a while all he could hear was the King's booming, hearty laughter and the tap of the Prince's boots against the ground as he bounced in jest.

"Ahahahha! Th- that's very good!"

Before he could collect himself and exact upon them an eternity of whining, the door the advisor was leaning heavily against creaked open, sending him tumbling forward. He whirled his arms in a cartoonish manner around in the air for a moment before steadying himself and turning urgently towards the morning patrol scout peeking his head stiffly between the minute crack in the door.

"General Nappa, sir?"

"What?" Nappa really didn't care if he sounded a might salty, because he was still bitter about the amount of times he, and elite warrior, had been manhandled in the first few hours of his waking.

"News from the underground,"

After a small while of cackling evilly along with his son, King Vegeta heaved and sniffed in an attempt to clear his aching throat. With an eager smirk, Prince Vegeta leaned in to hear what he was going to say. "Now, this time-" The King's lecture was interrupted before he could even begin.

"Sire! Invaders, in the market place!" Nappa's voice sliced the King's chill, and immediately the overlord straightened, rushing towards the exit of the training chambers and past the reporting officer, Nappa close behind him.

"Nappa, take Vegeta home," The King called behind his back gruffly, and Nappa reeled around, trotting back to where he could more effectively gather the slightly tyrannical prince.

"Aw dad, can't I come?" Vegeta really didn't want to end his perfect morning sulky because his father wouldn't allow him to experience real excitement, like what any normal Saiyan would feel in the heat of battle.

"No, son," And then King Vegeta was a mere dot in the distance. The little prince new it was to good to be true.

Veget frowned, furrowing his brows and stamping his feet, his displeasure clear to show. He muttered angry curses under his breath. Nappa frowned, eyeing the Saiyan cub suspiciously as they trotted out of the door and gradually further away from the private training pad. The advisor hurried after the heir as he was lagging behind, lost in his mind once again. "Oh come now, Prince, one day you will be King! Than you can chase those slobbery, mangy bastards from dawn until dusk!"

7

"Hey uncle Paragus, guess what?" Paragus had retreated to the throne room to escape both the overbearing heat of midday on Planet Vegeta and his family, but it seemed fate had another plan in mind for the sadistic lord. He figured ignoring the little Prince would make the brat leave, but knowing the zealous prince, that would not be the case. Instead Paragus settled down upon his own seat of state and looked to the cub uninterestedly.

"I despise guessing games," He drawled out under his breath. Vegeta either didn't hear it or didn't pay it any mind, as he trotted up beside the Lord's throne confidently anyway.

"I'm gonna be King of the universe one day," He sniffed proudly, suddenly looking down at Paragus as if he were a rotting slab of liver.

"Oh goodie," Paragus grit. His face turned away from the bounding prince, but his eyes never left their trail on his nephew's back. He should have been King one day, not the pathetic runt frolicking prettily at his heels like the gelding he and his father truly were.

"My dad just showed me the kingdom, and I'm gonna rule it all," He emphasised meanly, knowing his uncle would hate the reminder. prince Vegeta chuckled.

Paragus sneered."Yes, well, forgive me for not leaping for joy, bad back, you know?" He slumped his posture in his heavyweight-chair, face grim yet unreadable to the proud child. Once again, Vegeta payed his bad attitude no mind.

"Hey uncle Paragus, when I'm King, what'll that make you?"

"A monkey's uncle,"

Prince Vegeta cackled, rolling away from where he was irritably prodding at his father's brother. "Hehe, your so weird," He phrased incredulously, raising his eyebrows into his fringe. Prince Vegeta honestly couldn't wait until his hairline looked more like his father's; his current one looked so adolescent and unprofessional and cub-like that he almost couldn't take himself seriously. He supposed it didn't matter, however, as he was probably by far one of the strongest saiyans of their age-group.

"You have no idea," Paragus replied to the rude statement with a toothy smile, one that opted Vegeta's amused smirk to fall once again into his usual scowl. "So, your father showed you the whole kingdom, did he?"

"Everything."

"He didn't show you what's beyond the northern border?" Paragus already new the answer, but asked anyway. He was concocting a plan in his mind that might just allow him to rule after his elder sibling after all.

"You mean that dry slab of dusty, boring wasteland? I'd never want to go there, anyways. It'd just add more dust to my heel and then I'd have to call another boot-licking peasant to wash it away. Father said I can't go there, anyway." Vegeta hissed dejectedly, and the Prince's face stilled in a stony expression of delinquency as though he was planning to go to the abandoned war field anyway. Paragus hid his smirk with a look of false sterness.

"Well he's absolutely right! It's far to... Unnatural. Only the bravest saiyans go there." Paragus trailed off at the end of his heed, shifting his weight to his right side and leaning into his arm, which rested supportingly on his supple chin. The Lord scrunched his nose in thought, as if Prince Vegeta were never really there with him. He had always, Paragus liked to think, been the better actor of his batch.

"Well I'm brave, what's out there?" Prince Vegeta leaned in casually, though he was brimming with inquisition and excitement at the thought of both breaking the rules, exploring someplace new and restricted and proving his braveness to himself, his friends and his future kingdom. Maybe it would allow him to branch further from his father's shadow.

"Oh, no- I just- can't bare with- couldn't tell you-" Paragus jumbled dramatically, feigning the majority of his emotions. He wondered if he'd ever get toxic-poisoning from how fake he was. He was as valid as plastic.

"Why not?" The little Prince's disappointment was clear, though it had a threatening edge. The little firecracker never really was one to be kept from something he wanted, the spoiled brat. Perhaps Paragus' plan, if unsuccessful, would at least teach his nephew an ounce of modesty. "Then I order you as future king to tell me,"

"Vegeta, Vegeta, Vegeta, I'm only looking out for your well being of my favourite nephew," Paragus lectured, reaching forward to ruffle Prince Vegeta's large mane of hair. The prince pulled away and swatted at his uncle's thick hand.

"Yeah right, I'm your only nephew," Prince Vegeta rolled his eyes.

Paragus made some strange motions with his pinkie finger, but yipped curtly, "all the more reason for me to be protective," With a piping voice. "An Oozaru graveyard is no place for a young prince," It was then that the Lord gasped, covering his mouth with widened eyes.

Prince Vegeta gaped. How could an Oozaru graveyard have come to be? Besides the legend of the super saiyan, the Oozaru was the strongest stage a saiyan could achieve under the full moon, and/or an artificial one.

This he had to see.

Author's note: ok, so, be prepared for an unstable roller coaster of long chapters, grammar mistakes and uneven update schedules because this piece is just for fun. I do not own The Lion King, It's characters, DBZ(S) or its characters...Ok so that Be Prepared reference was actually unintentional, but I'm going to keep it there anyways.


	2. Vegeta the Brave

The Lion King along with its general plot and songs are not owned by me. Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball z and Dragon Ball Super do not belong to me. Each franchise is owned by its respective people and companies.

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 **Trigger warning**

 **This fic includes disturbing and possibly triggering content such as abuse, child manipulation, drugs, violence, manipulation and assault. You have been warned!**

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1

He had not whisked through the streets like a man on the run to deal with this, Vegeta realised. He had exercised the very best of his acrobatic skills, balance, concentration, senses and speed in order to zip through the city swaddling the palace without being noticed only to deal with Kakaot's slightly overprotective, uneasy, paranoid, worthless, powerless, nerdy father.

Instead, in spite of his efforts, Vegeta was greeted with the ever unwelcoming face of Bardock. He just couldn't garner a reason in his mind why the former squadron leader held no fear or respect for the Prince's authority. Instead of bowing down to his wishes like almost every other sentient organism on the planet and those surrounding it, he would continue to be rude, stubborn and utterly infuriating. If not for the fact that Kakarot would be mad at him and his father would be disappointed in him, he would have blasted the fickle bastard into the far reaches of oblivion with no remorse or regret.

"Where's Kakarot?" Prince Vegeta hissed as Bardock stared at him, frowning. The doctor raised an eyebrow at the little Prince. Ever since he and King Vegeta had arranged the mating between the two, visiting hours had been established so the couple could get to know each other better. They had become the sort of close friends ever since, and they both reminded Bardock eerily of his childhood spent with King Vegeta. He narrowed his eyes.

"What do you need my son for, if I may ask?" They both scowled at each other. Prince or not, he would not be bossed around by a mere cub. As the Prince and his son were not mates yet, he was still Kakarot's 'boss' and he would not let his son out to be harmed. The two cubs tended to get into quite a lot of trouble when together.

Bardock ignored how that was yet another thing that reminded him of his days of early friendship with the boy in front of him's father. The two of them together, Bardock could recall, were often referred to as demon spawn, though they had to be far more sneaky and malicious as to avoid King Vegeta's reputation getting tarnished because he was caught mingling with a ratty, wormy third class nothing like he. Luckily, over the years he had risen in the ranks to that of first class, but he refused to ignore where he came from and were his roots lie. The slums shaped his refined mind to be who he is today.

Prince Vegeta tapped his food impatiently. "I just wanna go spar," he lied, but Vegeta had a practised poker face and a very small amount of saiyans could see through it. King Vegeta was about the only one talented enough to dismember it each time, though Vegeta told himself it was because it was his father who had taught it to him and not his lack of practice.

"Vegeta, is that you?" The little prince froze. He new that voice. It was the voice of an angered demon, a monster intent of unzipping his guts onto the ground whenever he committed wrong or killed any poor peasant that dared defy him.

"Mother..." He confirmed slowly, peeking out from behind Bardock's firmly set legs. With one last side eye, Bardock stepped aside and allowed the heir to trot on in, tail wrapped firmly around his smaller waist, yet he flicked it dismissively in Bardock's direction. Said doctor fumed.

Bardock's home, despite it's, (for any commoner, that is), rather intimidating size, was quite homely when taking its interior into count. It's pale walls were glittered with framed photographs and mini shelves of ornamental memories, with a small hearth cooing pleasantly buy the lounging quarters where Kakkarot, Gine, Kakarot's mother, and his own dame were settled. Scented candles were dipped upon any available notch possible, and a small basket of unburned smudge sticks were settled upon the dining table. The air was scented with vanilla. A small part of Vegeta liked it's compression, but he found that he by far preferred the longevity of the castle halls and the various spacious palace wings.

"'Geta, hi!" He heard the familiar voice of Kakarot yip from where he was set on his mother's lap munching at an exotic red dragon-fruit as Gine brushed away at his unruly hair, clad in his strange orange gi. Now that Vegeta really considered it, Kakarot had a lot of strange things that many other saiyans didn't have, like his strange, elongating pole and that conscious, honey-pot yellow cloud he called Nimbus. Ignoring the niceties his younger friend possessed, the prince allowed his mind to wonder to the brown, speckled brush situated within Gine's petite hand. Vegeta thought it pointless to mane-brush as a saiyan's hair could never really be tamed like Kakarot's dame was trying so valiantly to do. He would commend her for her silly efforts, he supposed. "What are you doing here?"

Vegeta grunted in response, aimed at both Goku and Gine as his friend's mother offered him a small smile and a nod in greeting.

Geden, who was sat next to Gine made preposterous grabby hands for him. Ever since the two mothers had been introduced via their husbands, Geden and Gine had become fast friends. They spent a large majority of their afternoons together while Vegeta and Kakarot would spar and play outside or back at the palace. Vegeta suspected that they bonded largely over ranting about all the other problematic alphas in their large families. "Come on Vegeta, you could use a brush too," his mother pouted dramatically when he slapped one of her hands away. It looked like she was about to explode with reprimand for his rejection when he quickly directed the subject away from her anger at himself. He refused to throw a tantrum he new he would lose infront of Kakarot.

"I wanna go play with Kakarot. Later, ok?" He grumbled, and Kakarot laughed. Gine smiled knowingly.

"Where are we goin'?" Kakarot prodded, shuffling slowly away from his mother's tight grasp on him. He scrunched up his nose cutely. "It better not be somewhere boring." He brimmed, looking considerate as he shuffled through the possibilities in his head, but Vegeta new his friend would never guess where they were going.

"Very well, run along Vegtea, Goku," Gine giggled, patting at her son's shoulders until he slid off her lap and padded towards Vegeta, an eager smile upon his boyish face. Briefly, Vegeta wished his mother was that carefree and willing to let him do whatever he so pleased. Kakarot left the fruit's hollow carcass rolling on the side table by the couch the trio was set upon. Goku loved his family, but hated being fussed over for no reason. Vegeta, meanwhile, scowled at the use of the nickname 'Goku'. He thought it was far to un-saiyan for a pet name, but put up with it because Kakarot's family and friends seemed so intent on calling him that.

Kakarot whisked by one of the smaller tables littered around their house on his way towards Vegeta, quickly acquired the aforementioned 'power pole' he utilised in combat so fondly and hurriedly threw it between his shoulder blades.

Geden was still not pleased. "But take Nappa with you!" She called out behind them as Vegeta grabbed the beta's wrist and pulled him towards the exit. The prince caught Bardock by the doorframe looking overly smug as he froze and groaned with disapproval.

"No, not Nappa!"

2

"Hurry up!" Nappa called crossly from ahead of the two pacing saiyans. "The training ring is just up ahead, and the sooner we get there, the sooner we leave." The advisor looked on ahead, brows set in a straight line as he weaved through the populace of saiyans bustling around them, though most parted with awe as the little Prince was noticed. Nappa grit his teeth as he shoved his way through the gathering civilians and warriors as they attempted to get a better look at the Royal figure and his company. Vegeta couldn't help but smirk at the attention he was garnering.

Goku didn't pay much attention, however, opting to lean into Vegeta. "So where are we really goin'?" He whispered in a slightly loud hushed voice. Vegeta almost rolled his eyes at how bad his friend was at being secretive, but graced Kakarot with a response despite himself.

"An Oozaru graveyard." He hissed back quickly, casting a glance at Nappa ahead of them, who still hadn't seemed to have caught wind of their conversation. Instead he shoved a particularly pushful fanatic to the ground. There was a small commotion at the belligerent action, and Vegeta hastily took note of the rising annoyance the gathering crowd was cultivating for Nappa. He may possibly be able to use their dislike for the older saiyan to his advantage.

"Wow!" Kakarot gasped, large eyes widening in excitement. He couldn't even begin to fathom how an Oozaru graveyard came to be as Oozarus were the pinnacle of a saiyan's strength. Whatever killed them must have been really strong, and it got him exited, not to mention he was slightly curious if it was haunted. He could remember Raditz trying to scare him with stories of the dead standing once more but Goku didn't really believe anything. Not to mention Raditz was barely around anymore, having beenpemployed to a healthy rank in the team B squadron and thus dedicating his time to keep said position, perhaps rise higher to team A as was his goal.

"Shhh!" Vegeta hissed, hitting the naive beta upside the head in disapproval. Vegeta just could not understand what would motivate Kakarot to almost blow their cover like that. "Nappa!" He reminded sternly, and Kakarot quickly covered his mouth in response, eyes wide with guilt.

"Right," he chuckled uneasily, before his face hardened. "So how do we ditch the doofus?" Nappa may be an annoying pest sometimes, he could agree with Vegeta, but there was a reason the advisor was so often assigned to watch over them besides being privileged with the king's upmost trust. Nappa was an elite warrior he heard Raditz constantly drone about in admiration; fast, strong, ruthless, merciless when in battle. He used the blood from his foes' split arteries as war paint across his cheeks and used chips of their bones as tooth picks.

The two were whispering, plotting, when Nappa looked on at them wearingly. "Oh, just look at you," they turned to him, startled out of their planning when their supervisor altered his course to stand by them. "Little seeds of romance blossoming, your parents will be thrilled," the two saiyans gave each other flat, unimpressed looks. "With you being betrothed and all." Nappa finished.

Vegeta raised his eyebrow questioningly. "Betrothed?" Goku stared at the two curiously.

"Betrothed," Nappa repeated. "Intended, affianced." He expanded, as if it were common knowledge. It would have been if the crowds hadn't finally milled away from the scene before they angered their prince. All were weary of his short temper. Goku looked affronted, and the two saiyans exchanged looks of equal dismay.

"Meaning..." Goku blinked and Nappa rolled his eyes.

"One day you two are going to be married!" He yipped as though it were celebratory news. Instead the two saiyan cubs gagged with disgust.

"I can't marry him, he's my friend!" Vegeta sneered, and Nappa frowned. Goku agreed instantly.

"Yeah, it'd be so weird," Kakarot chuckled. Nappa scoffed at the notion that a beta would have a choice in the matter anyway.

Nappa sniffed down at them. "Well sorry to bust your bubble," he popped, crossing his burly arms over his large, armoured chest. Goku faltered for a moment, pondering on how he though the quote Nappa used was 'burst your bubble', not 'bust'. "But you two cubs have no choice. It's a tradition going back generations." Nappa ranted and Goku laughed silently as Vegeta began to mimic their babbling body guard.

"Well when I'm King, that'll be the first thing to go." Vegeta rolled his eyes, nudging Goku in the shoulder in assurance of his future authority. Vegeta grinned. He probably looked so cool to the younger cub.

"Not so long as I'm around." Nappa insisted.

"Well in that case, you're fired." Vegeta looked up at the advisor smugly.

Nappa laughed with a booming voice that carried quite far. "Nice try, but only the King can do that!" He bopped his plump finger on Vegeta's nose, who almost reeled back at the assertive motion.

"Well he's the future king," Kakarot reminded slyly, bless his soul.

With regained confidence Vegeta continued. "Yeah, so that means you need to do what I tell you to." He hissed, elbowing the elite in the kneecap. Nappa winced, stumbling forward. Though the Royal advisor had not realised it, the trio had finally arrived at the sparring ring, which consisted of a slightly crowed, large pallid dome with padded internal structure.

"Not yet I don't, and with an attitude like that I'm afraid you're shaping up to be a pretty lousy King indeed!" Nappa relented, slightly more flustered than before as his tail ruffled in frustration. Vegeta smirked, unfazed, for he new that slowly he was getting beneath the advisor's usually thick skin. Saiyans really could not stand insults against their violated pride.

Both Goku and Vegeta rolled their eyes in disinterest at what their appointed supervisor was babbling on about, reeling around and only angering the disrespected noble more then ever before. A high ranking warrior such as him could only stand so much strain on his pride before they snapped. "Hah, not the way I see it!" Vegeta began as if a tune was concocting itself in the distant background.

 _With quick reflexes, he sprung forward and landed right in the advisor's face, startling the elder with the little prince's advanced speed. "I'm gonna be a mighty King, so enemies beware-" he stalked forward._

 _Nappa backed into the wall of the training dome before he composed himself. "Well I've never seen a king or beast with quite so jam-packed hair," he plucked at Vegeta's fringe._

 _"I'm gonna be the main event-" he leapt upon Nappa's broad shoulders, suddenly shrouded in a showy flash of Ki. "-like no King was before- I'm brushin' up, I'm lookin' down, I'm workin' on my roar!' He jumped down, sending the advisor stumbling into a near puddle._

 _"...Thus far a rather uninspiring thing-" Nappa brushed his face in a near towel, which he didn't realise were the weighted robes of an affronted Namek. Said namekian sent him flying into the entrance of the training dome. He yowled in surprise._

 _"Oh I just can't /wait/ to be King!" Vegeta sung, he and Kakarot running after the advisor. All the dome occupants parted for them._

 _"You've got rather a long way to go, young master- you think!" Nappa picked himself off the ground grumpily, now in the middle of the dome._

 _"No one saying 'do this',"Goku made mocking faces from behind Nappa, before the advisor turned to face him._

 _"No one sayin' 'be there'-" Goku sung in a by far more softer voice. Vegeta made faces from behind Nappa as well, and the two saiyans giggled._

 _"No one saying 'stop that'-"_

 _"No one saying 'see here'-" they bolted from Nappa._

 _"Now see here!" He yowled, temper rising to uncomprehendingly high levels._

 _"We can run around all day-" Vegeta continued, he ad Goku hitching a ride on the back of two large raptors who had been set as jurassic guard-dogs for the dome. "We can do it all my way!"_

 _Nappa struggled after the two fleeing dinosaurs. "I think it's time that you and I arranged a heart to heart-" he crashed into the side of a large meatian._

 _"Kings don't need advice from big fat hornbills for a start!" Nappa peeled himself from the larger saiyan's side._

 _"If this is where the monarchy is headed, count me out! Out of service, out of Vegeta-sei, I wouldn't hang about! This child is getting wildly out of wing!" He took after the cubs once more._

 _"Oh I just can't /wait/ to be King!" Discarding the raptors, the two saiyans cantered, bouncing through a line of guards, who stiffly formed a carpet of access through the crowds, saluting and stamping their boots._

 _"Everybody look left-" the flash mob trampled over poor Nappa, who was to the left of Vegeta. "Everybody look right-" they trampled the general on their way back. "Everywhere you look I'm-" Prince Vegeta jumped across the crowds' heads. "Standing in the spot light!"_

 _"Let every creature go for broke and sing!" All Vegeta's loyalists chorused. "Let's hear it in the heart and on the wing! It's gonna be King Vegeta's finest fling!"_

 _"Oh I just can't wait to be King!"_

 _"Oh I just can't wait to be King!"_

 _"Oh I just can't /wait/ to be king!"_

The flash mob dispersed in a sudden rush, and Advisor Nappa was lost deeply in the commotion, squashed, seething and battered beneath a cavalcade of squirming, stampeding warriors.

2

"Hehhe! Alright, it worked!" Vegeta crooned, though both he and his friend were cackling devilishly. Within the commotion the two had taken their chance to abandon their personal guard, now free of all and any restraints. Goku thought it had been quite fun and eventful to execute Vegeta's plan as well, especially because it had worked and now Nappa was far behind them.

"Yeah, we lost him!" Goku agreed enthusiastically, and Vegeta beamed, puffing out his chest assuredly. Kakarot stared at him in awe of his power and potential, but he soon frowned at the proud prince's next comment.

"I am a genius." He stated, beating his chest in victory. Kakarot's posture, once loose, tensed, and the beta slunk around to face his friend.

"Hey, I helped too," he reminded, poking the little prince in the chest with an experimental frown. Prince Vegeta payed it little mind, flicking his fringe and looking back to his companion with a dark smirk.

"Yeah, but you're just a beta, and I pulled it off," Prince Vegeta licked his lips, and Kakarot hissed in clear disagreement.

"With me!" Goku challenged, though before he was prepared Vegeta narrowed his eyes and grinned.

"Oh yeah?" Challenge accepted. With a quick grunt he charged at the younger, slamming his own mass into Goku's unprepared form and sending them both tumbling to the ground, enjoying both each other's company and their freedom from the prison that was Nappa's company. Kakarot growled, elbowing the prince in the ribs when he was pinned and sending them tumbling across the ground once more, caring little for the small beads of rocks and pebbles that scraped their elbows and knees

Both growled threateningly in their tangle of limbs, landing their own hits here and there, some missing or being blocked while others hit their marks successfully and allowed the contended the upper hand. Vegeta didn't admit it to himself, but he really didn't know what he'd do without Kakarot as his friend. It would be so terribly boring, having to hang about the palace all day with no one to play or spar with, no one to help you pull off your tricks to escape both Nappa and the formal assemblies and services he was forced to attended.

Suddenly Vegeta felt a powerful knee to his gut, a good hit that got them tumbling. Vegeta didn't really know what had happened in those moments, but when he opened his eyes his previous train of thought was dismissed when he saw Kakarot's overly smug face as he cackled, tail swaying loosely behind him. "Hah! Pinned ya!" His friend crooned proudly. Goku thought that Vegeta really had a little to much ego, so sometimes it felt good to knock him down a peg.

"Grr, lemme up!" Vegeta pushed the beta off him, scowling and pulling himself together before he eyed Kakarot's proudly turned back and a smirk fell on his face. Some fools may say that attacking from behind is cowardice, but Vegeta says that there is no fair and unfair in battle, only victory and defeat. With a sudden growl Vegeta pounced once more before Goku was out of range. What ensued was less of a sparring match and more of a rough tumble, as they felt the ground under them five way to a far steeper drop. The two of them laughed and wowed as they rolled down in a messy heap. When they finally stopped once more the victor was clear.

"Pinned ya again." Kakarot snickered with proud, lidded eyes before a sudden explosion drew their attention to an older-designed space pod crackling with smoke and electricity. Goku gasped, reeling of his friend in surprise at the steamy outburst, and Vegeta shot up, muscles stiff and finally comprehending where they truly were.

Tangent decay tinted the air that they breathed, black and morbid with only a distant sense of forlorn left to accompany them. Dark sand grit and waste was cluttered under their boots, mangled and twisted like barbed wire, thick with rot and decomposition. Winking around them were amasses of malnourished wheezes of escaping steam and huge, elephantine exoskeletons of both once-deployed space ships and shuttles.

Smaller pods were settled grimly, the inertia of the once speedy objects unsettling the two saiyan cubs to the core. Some were spouting insidious deformations of what were once words in an estranged, technologically metallic voice, listing off coalesces of old planets and set destinations. The destroyed motherships and their decoys lay half submerged in the ashen domes and dips of the wilting earth, with the only noise ahead being their occasional electrical flurries.

Gas, oils and petrol stung both Kakarot and Vegeta's throats, sending an unpleasant feeling of dread through their once jovial gizzards. A small, wonderful smile finally found Vegeta's face as his eyes met the empty sockets of a huge sapient skull, gargantuan jowls slandered with megalith-fangs protruding it's bony gums like stakes. Kakarot cowered in it's gigantism. Dust had welled in its echoey, devoid eyes like tears, and abandoned cobwebs were matted down the monster's throat and teeth like a restraining net of binds that would have most creatures asphyxiated.

Cautiously, the pair of saiyans crept forth, a slight spring to their light steps as though they were trying to keep as quiet as possible while also staying prepared for a possible assault. In a place like this, Goku figured, you must be ready for anything. Vegeta, however, had a much different interpretation of their surrounding, his eyes wide not with fear and guilty fascination like his friend, but excitement and accomplishment.

Side by side, the two had upped a stiff ridge in the unbalanced plot of land they had gotten themselves enshrouded with, coming face to face with the ominous presence of the stupendously large skull. For a while they stood in silence, thinking.

"This is it, we made it," Vegeta breathed, taking in the sight before nudging the beta in the elbow as the two began padding to the edge of the ridge, stepping lightly as to not disturb to much of the settled dust that had gathered over the years and settled like a fresh sleet of fluffy snow on a cold winter dusk. They moved in silent agreement as to where they were headed, eyes widening as the far lager mounts of billow gave way to an endless expanse of seclusion and heavy, desolate deplorability, miles of skeletons, spaceships and bodies. It truely was sanitary, Vegeta realised, as his eyes passed a mottle of much more humanoid remains.

"Wow," the two gasped in synchronisation, turning their heads to face one another. Prince Vegeta's face was clearly alit with excitement, having proved to both Kakarot, himself, Paragus and his father that he was brave, though Kakarot's expression was more of shocked awe. Though he was allowed to train, Goku found that he was never allowed near any battlefields or anything related to fatal combat, so for him this was overwhelming and exiting at the same time. He was a little taken aback.

"It's really creepy," Kakarot turned his attention back to the rather uninviting scenery set before them like a capsized hangar of corpses. 'It is,' Kakarot realised solemnly.

"Heh, this isn't creepy," Vegeta followed Goku's example, admitting to himself that their find was in fact quite intimidating, though he would not admit it. Luckily he was now one of the bravest saiyans, however, so he was confidant in his pride as a saiyan and as a prince he could handle it. "Isn't it great?"

"We could get in big trouble," Kakarot replied with a testing tone, though he didn't sound very concerned at the notion he put forward.

"I know, ha," Vegeta scoffed, turning away from his perch and assessing the mass of bone structure in the setting behind them.

"I wonder if it's brains are still in there.." Kakarot questioned, tone sly and curious as he slunk after the little prince. They continued closer to their destination, Vegeta smirking as if accepting a challenge to fight the strongest opponent of his time among the living.

"Only one way to know," he snickered, approaching the skull with unmasked confidence and stiffening his stance into one he liked to think was powerful. "Come on, let's go check it out." He padded ahead of his best friend, tail tightening around his waist in anticipation.

He was startled out of his reverie by a sudden hiss of rage, voice posh, positively curled with unadulterated rage and reprimanding. "Stop!" Nappa yowled, both his long, muscled arms and Ki flailing around him so violently Vegeta was sure at least half the population of scouters would have blown. He was glad he no-longer needed to wear the sketchy little headpieces to sense power levels as not only could they be restricting and deceivable, but they were bound to explode when a power level to overwhelming for them to sense flared.

Nappa's frowsy mouth was so far up his face that it seemed as though the general's nose wilted over it like a beak of some sort. "The only checking out you will be doing is to check out of here." He growled firmly, waving the now hissing prince away from his 'playground' and ignoring the "fucking Nappa-" he heard the cub curse under his breath in favour of getting him away from the ancient war grounds. "We are way beyond the boundaries of the Kingdom!" Nappa shivered.

The aged advisor ignored how simply shuttering made his bones ache in disdain. Even an elite saiyan could get injured sometimes, it was how they experienced growth and learned from their combatant mistakes. Without failure you would never be able to expand in mindset, and Nappa was experienced enough to understand how much a battle-hardened mind could benefit you. Being trampled by his assigned duty's ballad was not encoded into his mental lists of 'how to expand yourself'.

"Hehe, look, Banana-Beak is scared." Vegeta taunted, taking advantage of the Royal advisor's unease.

"It's Mister Banana Beak to you," Nappa hissed in response, bopping the little a prince's nose mockingly. Vegeta really hoped his father's trusted comrad wouldn't make a habit out of doing that, as it frustrated him to no end. He hated feeling inferior. "And right now we are all in real danger!" Nappa heeded, quickly glancing over his shoulder in worry.

Vegeta scoffed. "Danger? Hah, I walk on the wild side," The prince shrugged, trudging around Nappa's pathetic attempt at being a barricade from his new entertainment and slithering right up close to the skull's lips, flicking his wild mane of hair dismissively. "I laugh in the face of danger," he emphasised. "Unlike you, I'm not some deranged, delusional monkey."

"Well if it isn't a deranged, delusional monkey." Vegeta gasped, leaping in fright from the unexpected voice that breathed shivers down the back of his neck. In his panic and disregard for his previous zeal, he landed, hair of his tail standing on end, behind Kakarot, who's eyes, once bright with excitement and amusement, were now widened in a similar state of shock.

Out from both behind and inside the gaping abyss of the skull's jaws melted three diverse, mottled figures, each one cackling madly with puckered, Cheshire lips and wide, billigerent grins that seemed to stretch maliciously at their cheeks.

"Well, well, well, Froze, what have we got here?" The strongest and most malicious of the trio stalked forward, emanating a power that Vegeta found startling. He was a sickly pallid, polished hue of deep blue and white, with thorn-like horns protruding from his armoured body. His gushing eyes coldly bored into the three saiyans scornfully. He looked almost scrawny, but Vegeta realised he was far stronger than he looked. The figure's breathing was heard as air plunged down his throat.

"Mmh, I don't know, . What do you think, Chilled?" The second creature slurred thoughtfully. Unlike Frost, who was a mottled, cool blue, Froze was quite an alarming shade of glowing red, and he had a scouter pressed against his squinty eyes. He closely followed behind his partner, allowing a quick glance to the final member of their oddball threesome, who was a just as bright shade of orange, and, quite portly and small.

Instead of giving his companions a straight answer, Chilled cackled dumbly, his own tail wagging in anticipation.

"Oh, I was thinking... A trio of trespassers!" Froze accused, shoving his face into Nappa's own and startling the older saiyan, who had moved to protect his precious company from the imminent danger lurking like ghosts towards them. Nappa started and reeled back upon the invasion of his personal space. Kakarot and Prince Vegeta looked on fearfully, shrinking away, though Vegeta was quickly gaining his composure once more.

"And quite by accident, let me assure you, a simple navigational error." Nappa fumbled with his words, tongue twisting as he made motions to hurry away his company. Vegeta looked disgusted at the three arthropod-like beings, quickly getting over his past fear and replacing it with anger. How dare they treat the prince of all saiyans as such?

Quicker than Nappa could realise, Frost stepped firmly in the advisor's frazzled, unfurled tail, keeping him in place. It was moments like this where Nappa was truly glad he had trained his tail to resist crippling pain when contacted. "Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait, wait, wait- I know you-" Frost began pleasantly, referring to Nappa with almost drunken, lidded eyes. "I know you. You're King Vegeta's little stooge," he purred, fascination evident in his tone.

"-I -I, /sir/, am the king's major righ-hand-man," just as Frost had predicted, the saiyan had quickly jumped to defend his pride and thus confirmed his importance to the balance of the saiyan's reign. Saiyans really were all the same. Frost and his goonies began circling their captured preys with hyena-like grace, teeth bared in fickle grins. Goku looked frantically at the thorny beings with panic, while Vegeta looked on with a challenging glare.

"-and that would make you," Froze picked up where Frost had left off, staring holes into Prince Vegeta's Royal insignia, which was plastered richly on his white chest plate, and cape, which billowed behind his wealthy blue spandex. It was a stark contrast to the gruesome environment around them, and the loaded materials practically leaked off the refined scent of money and wealth.

"Future king." Vegeta confirmed, staring holes into Froze's mottled face in return. Frost glanced at Kakarot contemplatively.

"So what does that make you, little boy?" For a quick moment Frost assessed the smallest of the invading trio, malicious red eyes narrowed in sharp thought. There was something off about him, something most different to that of usual saiyan ankle-biters like the baby King- ah, so that was it- "oh this is just precious, don't know if it's just the pretty face or the power level that gives it away, but your 'Baby King's' little courtesan, aren't you?" He shook his head and turned back to the hissy-fitting Prince spazzing about within the middle of their circle.

"Do you know what we do to kings who step out of their kingdoms?" Frost chuckled incredulously, though an underlying threat could be traced like poison in his voice, strong enough that you didn't need to be a forensic to pick up the hints of venom. Vegeta looked on with ego written upon his face, confidence replenished after they referred to him as a King despite its mocking undertones. He'd show them.

Nappa wasn't faring as well as his prince, with his eyelids drooping with stress and sweat gathering in the pores of his bared, gleaming forehead. Kakarot was swooping around, looking for a way out of the situation. He may have been trained in combat, but he had never faced off with opponents so unbelievably strong before. He could sense their power emanating from their slinky forms, and it was a frightening experience for him. Though Goku adored a good challenge, he was only a sheltered nine-year-old at heart.

"Peh, you can't do anything to me." Vegeta spat, disgusted at their petty delusions and hiding the gathering worry biting at his brows and thus furrowing them. He would not grace his opponents with the show of any satisfying emotions.

Nappa fraughted, however, knowing that Vegeta was likely only encouraging their enemies on. "Ahhaha, but they can, we are on their land," he hissed into the little prince's ear, and Vegeta could only stare back confused. It was the Icejins that were on their planet, how were they trespassing?

"But Nappa, you told me that Icejins were nothing but slimy, amphibious, mangy salamanders." Vegeta reminded, staring at the Royal advisor pointedly. As the little prince continued on, Nappa made various violent, neck slitting, silencing motions with his fingerless-gloved knuckles.

Nappa felt his whole world collapse. "Who you callin' 'salamander'?" Froze growled, temper suddenly exploding in a rush of Ki that coalesced to amass around his rabid form.

"My my my, would you look at the sun-" Nappa hurried the two saiyan cubs in the direction of the kingdom, and, despite the lack of pride in fleeing, Vegeta decided he didn't want to risk Kakarot sustaining injury, as betas were rare and meant to be protected. He didn't admit that he was scared for his best friend safety, however. "It's time to go!" Nappa finished, pushful.

Unfortunately, nothing could truly be easy for Nappa, as Frost saw it fit to leap infront of the rushing trio they had come to decide were their new victims. "Oh but we'd /love/ for you to stay for dinner." The slim icejin emphasised with a distinct, almost flirtatious drawl in his voice. The three of them each lept forward to their unspoken choice of target, hissing like snakes.

3

Prince Vegeta leapt back as Frost came at him, barely avoiding a purposefully unrefined fist to his throat. Frost snickered as he raved in his his half-assed assault on the poor boy, who was dodging wildly. Prince Vegeta knew he should be blocking as much as he should dodge, but at this point in time he wasn't sure if he'd be able to handle the following force he was sure would come after catching once of his opponent's fists.

After dipping under yet another jab to his throat, Vegeta had given up on trying to familiarise himself with his opponent's style, as it soon became clear the pallid lizard was simply throwing around his fists like an ammeter. Vegeta was certain, after he slid to the left to avoid a fist to his nose, that if Froze didn't have all of his untrained, possibly unearned power behind his fists, he would have him defeated in less than a moment.

It was Prince Vegeta's return to arrogance that allowed Frost a clear uppercut to the cub's jaw, sending him trampolining into the air like a grasshopper. Taking advantage of the easy hit, Frost followed his previous actions up with an elbow to the Prince's gut and a knee to Vegeta's chest, winding him and sending the cub thundering to the ground. Frost landed shortly, crossing his arms and flicking a small speck of blood away from his witch-like nails as though he hadn't drawn it from an outmatched child. Frost smiled uncaringly.

Vegeta groaned, blood spilling from his mouth as he haunched over and coughed, both because of his newly acquired stomach aggravation and because he had bit his lip. Grappling at his gut as if it would ease the pain, he cracked an eye open to perceive his opponent's reaction. He bit his lip once more when his black eyes met Frost's red ones. The slim icejin was picking morsels from his teeth with his pinkie finger.

Frost looked as if he were going to speak, but Vegeta took his chance to shoot forward like a silver bullet and slam his fist the icejin in the jaw, neatly sending him shuttling back a few meters. Not wanting to blow what may be the only, and last, chance he gets at an effective combo, Vegeta propelled himself through the air with added momentum from the ground and head butted right into the core of Frost's stomach. The icejin wheezed raunchily. Leaping back a few feet and gaining an acceptable distance, Vegeta began to massage his scalp deprecatingly as he felt a headache coming on. Frost looked back at him with a mean smirk, twisting his nose into his face like a rich snob, yet he hadn't a dime to his name. The icejin reached up and wiped away a speck of blood from his lower lip, but Vegeta suspected it may have been flicked up from his genetically tall hair as his opponent, despite the prince's onslaught, was still largely undamaged.

Frost smiled. "You little shit," and Vegeta smiled back.

With a sudden hiss Prince Vegeta sprung fourth to meet fist with fist with his opponent, who casually blocked all of his assaults. A jab to any pressure points, deflected, an uppercut to any vantage points, stunted, any roundhouse kicks to any blind points, blocked. The crazy lizard even had the gull to simply withstand some punches that he seemed to be moving to lazily to block, and Vegeta quickly realised, more than ever before, that he was outmatched.

With a final long, exaggerated sigh, that came out quite cartoonish, Frost deflected one last pitiful attempt at an elbow to the back of his neck, growing tired of their little chirade. He had hoped the prince would prove to be at least some amusement, but, once again, he was wrong and left disappointed by the outcomes of his misjudgement.

Frost twisted around a barrage aimed at his torso, though it was only by instinct as his mind was floating elsewhere. He had heard that the little tyke that was currently trying to maim him was a pedigree, one born of such a high power level that the doctors believed he would implode as an infant. Power burn, they said, an all to familiar enemy. The fact that Baby King didn't blow himself to oblivion only proved his resilience, and Frost wondered if he could keep the little prince alive. It had been so long since he had a pet, and the tiny alpha seemed like he'd be quite enjoyable to watch break and crumble as his pride, honour and right to the throne were stripped away from him. Frost licked his lips as the stimulating prospect.

Frost swerved to avoid a kick to his cranium and revolved his upper body to deflect an attempt on his shoulder with his tail. It had also been very long since he had had an apprentice running about his heels, desperate to attain his power both for their personal benefit and probably so they could murder him with sadistic glee. He figured if the cub tugged his boundaries too hard he'd be able to find a way of putting him back in order, however, so he wasn't very worried about the little prince rebelling against him. There were always ways around that psychologically. He could lock the little prince away in a dark, silent chamber for three days every time he stepped out of line, he could slowly pull away his nails with his bare hands or de-fang him with pliers so he would no longer have a damageable bite.

That was when Frost failed to dodge a firm, nasty dollop to his chin, clicking his teeth together audibly, throwing his neck back with an unpleasant crick and throwing him into a nearby airship wreckage. Oh yes, Frost thought as he pulled himself from the rubble with no visible effort, wiping a collection of blood from his swelling chin. Potential indeed.

Vegeta was panting heavily, using his blemished glove to wipe away gathering sweat from his forehead. It wouldn't do to show his opponent symptoms of fatigue or weakness. Vegeta finally understood that he wouldn't win this battle with power alone, and that his strategical mind needed to come into play to win this rally. He felt as though he were prepared for anything in this battle, but his jaw still went slack as Frost managed to pull himself from his bed of crackling technology unscathed, save for slight blighting of his jaw.

"That's- the first time anyone has really gotten a good hit in since literally forever," Frost withered as he popped his shoulder and cracked his neck, twisting his body until his spine rattled as to limber his body. It seemed that Frost was finally getting serious. Vegeta backed away a few large steps as to gain space between them.

The little prince didn't see Frost move, but in the moment he blinked a white, clawed fist was balled deeply in his gut, causing him to double over like a snapped stick and cry out, spittle and blood projecting from his parted jaws and sending his ribs into a rattling frenzy. He stumbled back, clutching at his stomach with astounded agony and right into Frost's oncoming elbow, which connected with his upper back with a sickening crunch, dislocating the prince's small shoulder in one go. Revolving around his victim for added momentum, Frieza finalised his assault by bringing the full force of a fifty pound slab of meaty tail down upon Vegeta's head, sending the cub to the disrupted ground with a resonating clap.

Frost huffed as he stepped back to admire his work, his small distance allowing a perfect view of his victim. Prince Vegeta was sprawled out across the ground, dirt-washed and fickle and looking as weak as a sick elder, with matted, pulled hair and his fizzed tail and his one lose shoulder twitching as nerves pulsed through it as though they were forced to. The pallid icejin let a creepy smile pull at the sides of his lips, stepping forward until he kneeled over the boy and placed his disfigured hands across Vegeta's little shoulder. The prince screamed as it was locked back into place, sending shivers and whines of exquisite agony all through him, and Frost relished the screams. Vegeta had a nice screaming voice, it would be nice to hear it more often.

The prince was shaking by the time Frost allowed him some space to recuperate, though said icejin was staring down at him unpleasantly. "Is that all you've got in you? Hn, so I was right, you're just an overly preened pedigree that blitzes in his own hype so much that he'd descend in to living hell and endanger his bloodline, his mate, his closest comrade, who, might I add, risked a lot coming here to help the likes of you. He's going to die because of you. They're all going to die-" Frost's voice had toned down to a subtle whisper that only Vegeta could hear. "Because of your cowardice, pride, and dishonour." Frost breathed moisture into Vegeta's ears. It was then that the icejin was shoved away by an incomprehensible force.

With an angered roar Prince Vegeta pulled his broken form to his feet, muscles twitching in distress but eyes white with power that fired intensely around his little body like a cocoon of evolution. Frost was drawn to it as though it were a powerful intoxicant.

4

Goku barely had time to dodge Froze's clenched fist as it pounded at the area around his head, swerving and twisting away from the brawny onslaught to his vital areas with practiced agility, though he new it wasn't perfected lithify as he usually relied on the force of his punch to escape his problems. He knew he was far stronger than most cubs his age, possibly even many grown-ups, too, but he knew he was no match for the living battle tank he was up against, who wasn't letting up with his lethal punches and jabs.

After what seemed like hours of barely dodging hits that he was sure would blow a whole in his chest, Froze finally added some diversity to his onslaught, still uttering not even a grunt of effort and remaining conceitedly silent throughout the ordeal. With considerably more precision Froze aimed for a swipe at Goku's hip, which he deflected, though the beta didn't expect the semi-advanced martial arts move to only be a minor distraction for the swipe to his smaller knees.

The blow sent him tumbling down to the ground with a gasp, thudding against a small collective of pebbles and propping himself up on his elbows in just enough time to shift out of the collision course Froze knee was travelling. He watched with bugged eyes as the knee imbedded itself deeply into the area where he once was, the power of the blow sending him scatting away with the debris. He used the momentum to his advantage, however, to scramble to his feet.

Before Goku was barely on his hands and knees Froze conducted a small, mocking kick that once again sent him propelling away, though this time Goku was prepared, grappling onto the blunt icejin's deformed foot and using the force of Frost's own violent kick to propel his opponent into a far off stack of supply wood seemingly used once to stabilise the muddy trenches.

Despite the small victory, Kakarot didn't go without damage as he pulled himself free of the small dust turbulence his roughhousing had caused, and his arm was aching dully. He regarded the small assembly of crates suspiciously, hoping that he had incapacitated his superior foe, but instead only greeted with distant movement within the rubble. First it was the skewed view of an elbow tip, than a thick shoulder and slick tail. That was all it took for Froze to pull himself completely from his bed of crates, an angered frown playing at his facial features as he spit splinters from his lips.

"Heh, clever clever," Froze allowed, rolling his shoulders and dismembering Goku's turtle stance with his spearing gaze. Goku shuttered, but forced himself to swallow his apprehension and focus on the bubbling excitement within him. He had already accepted his lack of brute strength when compared to his new opponent, but, as dense as many would believe him to be, Goku knew there was more to martial arts than the numbers on your power level and he had many techniques to utilise up his sleeve. "I'm actually surprised you managed a feat like that, beta, but I won't underestimate you next time." He stepped closer, form how limbered from their 'warm up'.

Kakarot nodded surely. "I sure hope you don't, Mister,"

He slid into the turtle stance he learnt from Master Roshi when Froze abruptly halted in his advance, eyes drifting to the left side of their makeshift arena and back to the seemingly harmless weapon strapped to Goku's back.

"Say, it's not very fair that you have a weapon," Froze inquired, glaring back intensely and Goku cocked his head. Vegeta had always told him that, in true battle, there was no such thing as fair and unfair, only victory and defeat, though after thinking for a moment, Goku realised that came from the same cub who told him that first-degree-murder was surprisingly fun when you were rich enough to get away with it.

"I can take it off if you want," Goku yipped earnestly, fiddling testily with the fray of the rope that kept the magical pole in place on his back, big eyes looking to Cooler for permission, but instead the icejin's eyes widened in sadistic glee. Goku watched on with curiosity as the purple monster trudged to the left of the ring and drew from the decay a glinting scrap of metal, though a quick brush revealed that under all the mache lay a glinting, albeit rusty, whetted sword.

Cooler drew the expensive blade up and lined it between his eyes, studying its expert craftsmanship. "I was thinking, maybe, a little dance would be nice, right, little one?" There was a cruel look in his eyes that made Goku shiver with excitement at the thought of a true battle, though it soon dimmed.

"Dance? Why would I wanna dance?" He blinked with frustration, though considered his stance with the inevitable use of his power pole. To the naked eye it may have been a simple stick, but Goku new otherwise, and Froze was in for a nasty surprise when he discovered it's magical properties. After mulling over the idea of getting straight to the point and extending the pole right off the bat he realised that he should save it for a dire moment where the shock factor and added length may unfasten him from a sticky situation. He gripped the Power Pole closer.

Froze laughed, playing with the sword's tip for a small moment before twiddling it in his hands and slashing the air experimentally, it's sharpness seemingly slicing atoms in half as it whistled. "Oh, you are just adorable." With that the purple icejin rushed forwards, adjusting his weapon in his grip and thrusting it forwards as to either slice the beta's ankles or simply get his opponent off balance.

Instead, and to his shock, Goku leapt upwards, high in the air, and somersaulted until he came down lightly on Foze's shoulders, using his slanted posture as a spring board to gain distance between them. Wanting to waist no time, Froze twisted around and adjusted the grip on the sword handle a second time. Goku, meanwhile, had landed from his temporary suspension in the air, skitting across the ground on his arm and leaving a trail of maroon dust in his wake as he did so. Goku came to a stop and kneeled to catch his breath, momentarily forgetting his opponent.

"Hyaaa!" Froze leapt into the air once again, sword raining down right on Goku, who narrowly avoided by the skin in his nose with a small yelp and a widening of his eyes at the close encounter. It clipped open a small wound across his cheek, but neither parties payed it no mind due to its unimportance. Froze grit his teeth as he pulled the sword free from the ground it had tucked itself into, wedging it out roughly. Small chips of the sword's point and central ridge stayed buried in the ground, now uprooted from their main body and glinting like minerals.

Undeterred, Froze struck again, springing towards Goku and swiping at the younger's ankles once more. Goku took to the air with a valiant leap, twisting so he was upside down and pulling his power pole from it's bracket. With a yell they both connected strikes, weapons wrangling against each other as Goku came back down from the sky. They quickly pulled apart once more, separating to gain distance, and to Froze's shock, Kakarot's pole was undamaged. The red icejin grit his teeth.

Froze's thin lips twisted into an appreciative smirk. "You have great power for a little one, don't you?" His voice was husky and Goku thought that it was suddenly quite kind and pleasant. He relaxed his stance as Froze did, both sides regarding each other in a slightly less combatant light.

"Thank you, I had great teachers," the prince's best friend accepted the compliment jovially, tail not around his waist as it should be but instead swaying behind him friendlily.

Froze decided he wasn't lying with his blaze statement, as his opponent really was a talented and gifted martial artist, though barely before they began he could tell there was more to the cub that what meets the eyes at fist glance. One may assume, upon looking at him, that he was a boyishly charming saiyan cub with big eyes and a cute little smile, and Froze began, only then, to appreciate his opponent as more than just a doll to throw around, but as a beta.

"Ah, yes," he was startled from his study by quite the intriguing epiphany. "I thought I recognised your stance. You've defiantly been trained by the Turtle Hermit, Master Roshi, haven't you?" He had heard of the old Kame house hermitage and of its occupant, the legendary master. If he were to have taken on the little cub before him as a student he must really have shown some potential. Goku was honestly growing on him by the moment.

"I'm starving," he heard the cub's voice cut through, and said saiyan was indeed rubbing at his stomach rather unhappily.

"Heh, guess I should start getting serious, then, huh?" Froze shifted his stance into one Kakarot wasn't able to recognise, but after a quick diagnosis it was confirmed to be very advanced. Twisted elbows, bent knees, arched back, evil smile. Froze cleared his throat and Goku looked to him hardly, ears strained. "You're not the only one with special powers, kid."

Froze roared, Ki building in his hands until a ball of light the size of a small basket ball was fizzling within his fingers, small sparks melting like goo through his clutch. The lizard wasted no time in charging forward at a speed poor Goku could barely comprehend, releasing the globule as it connected to the youngest saiyan's stomach, propelling him through three large battleships. Kakarot allowed a broken shout to escape his crippled jaw as he slammed through the tight metal, Froze's belligerent Ki sphere piecing his gi and his skin and leaving behind nasty burns.

Unsatisfied, Froze chased after his opponent, speeding through the damage Goku had caused when he ripped through the corpses of the ships. "Death Chaser!" He yowled as he forced his fist into Goku's stomach, twisting it until Goku doubled over and emptied his stomach of its bile. He followed his assault up with a knee to the same area and a devastating back-punch, knocking Goku to the ground with a lethal crash. Froze descended to assess his damage, only to find the resilient beta struggling to his hands and knees. A quick kick to Goku's belly was all that was needed to send the child crumbling to the ground, clutching his wounded liver with a pained cry as a rattling cramp ran through it.

"You just don't know when to give up, do you?" He raised his eyebrow as once again the cub tried to steady himself. "Just lose consciousness already," he groaned, frustrated as he placed another kick to Kakarot's shoulder. The youngest cub hissed in pain as a horrible sizzle flooded his nerve-system, and Froze's eyes darkened as he watched the beta squirm on the ground.

With a flat face Froze kneeled down over his fallen opponent, grabbing the saiyan's shoulders and flipping him so that he was lying on his back. Goku groaned at the abrupt change in position, coughing as if he were being choked and squeezed his eyes shut. Goku felt bleary, head throbbing and he felt as though he couldn't move his body any longer. He was just so tired, and he had horrible cramps screaming bloodily in his liver. The sunlight was darker than usual.

Froze growled, placing a quick slap against the beta's cheek, just hard enough to shake him up a little. "Hey, you know it's really rude to fall asleep during a dance. Is it the music? Is it to slow for you? Ya know, you coulda just told me and I would've turned up the heat," he smirked meanly, and Goku caught a look in his eyes that he hadn't noticed being there before, back when they were exchanging blows. It was dark, sinister, and Goku didn't like the way his eyes looked down at him as if he wanted something. Kakarot wasn't one to fear easily, but there was something twisted in that gaze that stirred dread deep within him.

Froze seemed to notice Goku's discomfort, though he only responded by leering over him and pressing the cub into the ground further. "What's wrong?" He purred, drawing his sharp finger down Goku's cheek and forcing the beta to look him in the eyes lest his skin be scissored through. Goku grit his teeth and began to struggle to test the hold, trying in vain to find an opening to execute his escape but there seemed to be no hope left. He could hear Froze laugh, before the purple icejin's grabby fingers clutched his cheeks and once again forced eye contact.

"Has anyone ever told you how pretty you are?" Froze clucked slowly, eyes raking over him one last time before that familiar dread settled unwelcomely in Goku's stomach once more. The icejin leaned in impossibly close, and Kakarot hurriedly fumbled for his weapon, something that Froze had either forgotten about or deemed useless in this situation. He didn't know what was happening but by the time he had established a proper grip on his pole he could feel the purple monster's breath beating against his lips, holding his head in place so he couldn't pull back.

Goku wanted to gag at the scent of distant alcohol that invaded his mouth as he opened it to speak. He had intended to yowl out his familiar saving command, beckoning for his Power Pole to elongate, but instead his mouth was covered with Froze's own, and his eyes widened with disgust. He attempted to shove his smaller head to the side to avoid the invading tongue lodged in his mouth, but found he was horribly trapped. The cub gasped and thrashed as the large muscle moved within his mouth, slurping, licking, and his world seemed to crumble. Goku could feel Froze chuckle through his sealed mouth; the child's struggling was in vain, and he kept the beta pinned to the ground firmly with his heavy chest. Kakarot's nails scraped at it blindly, however unable to puncture the strong cartilage of Froze's body. He soon felt himself begin to fall desperate for air as the claret icejin placed his elbows by Goku's neck, deepening the kiss, when he finally retaliated. Kakarot caught the icejin's top lip with his sharp puppy-teeth and bit down into it like meat, cleanly puncturing the soft flesh. Froze yowled, instantly pulling back and ripping his lip even more by doing so. Ignoring the blood welling in his mouth and around his swollen lips, Froze's blood, Goku made one last effort to part the two for good.

"Power Pole, extend!" And then Froze was gone. Goku shoved himself to his feet, shaking unsteadily as he gulped down the relatively fresh air of freedom and worked to gain control over his rapidly elongating weapon, which was quaking in his fingers. He stood stock still, sensing for raises in his opponent's ki, testing the air for smells and noises, feeling for disturbances in the air current, anything to help him locate Froze, but there was still nothing. It wasn't long until Power Pole retracted to its basic length and Froze stumbled waveringly back from the direction in which he was propelled. Goku was hacking and spitting madly to remove the remnants of their encounter. He didn't understand what had just happened, but he hated every moment of it.

Froze was limping, eyes and tail twitching erratically with one hand clutching at a deep indentation in his stomach and another waving around, balancing him as he heaved and gasped, seething with anger at being shown up so painfully. "D- dammit, that really hurt, you- you-" the icejin grit out, and Kakarot pursed his lips.

"It was just an attack, you're acting like I cheated or somthin'," Goku shrugged while Froze's eyes twitched.

"You're gonna pay for that, bitch!" Froze shot forward, aiming for Kakarot's tail. He was unable to defend himself from the icejin's full speed.

5

With a loud grunt Vegeta dashed forward, greeting Frost's lusty eyes with hard head to the icejin's temple, a roundhouse kick to his trapezius and a balled knuckle to the hem of his collarbone. Frost cried out as he toppled to the ground, overwhelmed by the sudden burst of power, but even as he was writhing in the ground, Vegeta decided that he wasn't finished with his fun. Descending from his droning hover above the ground, Vegeta landed and gripped Frost's heavy-lying tail with strong hands and tugged at it until Frost's crazed eyes flitted to his black ones.

"D- don't you dare you filthy monkey, don't you dareerAAARGH-" Frost crooned as Vegeta tightened his grip on the pallid icejin's flailing tail, nails pressing into the thick skin hardly until it compressed and collapsed under the intense pressure. Not once did Vegeta's eyes leave Frost's. He grinned madly as spray of blood began to ebb from the breaking flesh like liquor around his hands and Frost threw his head back.

"I have a question for you, you fucking used condom, so listen here as I'm only asking this once," the prince boiled over, eyes piercing Frost's like a stake. Frost growled rabidly in response, gritting his teeth in agony as his limb was crushed in the hands of a child. "If I tore your tail off right now, would it grow back?" And so he did, with a sickening crunch and a wet scream from his victim.

Frost screamed in rage, reaching forward to swaddle his malnourished hands around the little alpha's throat.

"I'll kill you, I'll kill you, I'll kill you I'll kill you!" He roared, teeth bared as he crashed into the Prince's smaller body and sent them both tumbling to the ground, rolling like tigers until Frost finally had the prince pinned under him, restrained. Frost gathered himself, feeling ashamed of himself for underestimating his opponent and allowing such a humiliating feat to come to play. Spindly fingers still pursed around his opponents neck, Frost watched as the last of the anger-high power drained from Vegeta's eyes until he was left quaking and scraping for the air the icejin had cut off. Frost grit his teeth and risked a glance to his damaged tail, which was bruised and blistered from the heat Vegeta had applied from his Ki-empowered fingers. The tip was bent in an odd direction. Vegeta whinnied as his throat swelled and bulged.

"Grr, I could kill you right now-" Frost gave the prince's neck one last testing squeeze before he pulled away, watching as his little victim squirm as he glutinously gulped down as much air as possible. The relief Vegeta felt in those moments was enough to get him intoxicated, and for a while he simply lay in luxuriated silence. After a few short moments of rejuvenation he pulled himself to his feet, shaking slightly and breathing with shuttering, quiet breaths. He cleared his mind and glared at the opposing icejin with malice and hate.

For a moment they simply stared each other down, sneers mocking on their faces until Frost's form went completely lax and the smirk in his face thickened. "You know, you're not quite as bad as I thought you were. Seeing as you're the prince I assumed you'd just roll around in your wake and wealth, but seems the puppy has some potty training after all," his voice was as slimy as his body and mind, wicked and nefarious in every way imaginable. Vegeta, however, found himself unable to look away from the icejin's terrifying eyes. They appeared so unnatural. "You know," Frost continued, despite how the conversation had already ended. "You would be so much more powerful if you lived the life of freedom out here, away from the corruption of your bedraggled politics and your poisonous roots."

"If this is some half-assed attempt at recruiting me, you're sorely lacking in persuasive technique." Vegeta shrugged, but narrowed in his vision to catch a glimpse of the Icejin's reaction without looking like he was trying to hard. Frost smirked because his victim's voice was still hoarse from asphyxiation.

"Oh, I wouldn't dream of recruiting a prince," Frost fluttered his lidded eyes innocently. "But don't you want the power I have?" He cooed, before an idea came to his mind and he smiled meanly, propping his left hand on his hip to assume a more supported stance. "The most damage you've done to me is tug my tail, and we both know the effects of tail tugging if I so decided to return the favour- you can train it all you like but no matter how strong, a broken limb is a still just a limp, useless, broken limb." Frost cracked his knuckles and Vegeta gulped. "Unless, of course, you trained under me, my little pet."

Vegeta found himself about to retort when he instead considered his options. He had already decided that he could not win this battle with sheer force and awesome power, so he would have to be smart, sly, and play his cards right. "Well, you're not making it sound very promising, I'm afraid," Vegeta continued anyway, eyes narrowed and resulted. "Fist of all, I think we can both agree that I did a little more that 'tug your tail', Frost, and I'm only a cub. Surely I'll surpass you in the next year or two at most if I grow at my current pace and I can't help but feel like you're only doing this to keep me in check. Oopsy, I'm not right, am I? Aha, right? That'd be ridiculous." Vegeta crooned back with a superior smirk.

Frost bubbled over with his familiar unclearness of rage and frustration. "You? Surpass me in a year? Hah, spare me with your pathetic delusions, monkey, I don't deal with that idealistic shit. You're just a rich doll your rich daddy paper-mache-ed with some rich whore off the street so he could have an early, rich retirement. With you under my metaphorical wing you could grow into a mighty warrior, undisputed, unchallenged, saluted by all." The icejin smiled. "I can see it in you, child, you have the potential to become a Super Saiyan."

Vegeta faltered, eyes widening slightly. How did gelding scum like Frost know of the crowned legend of the Golden Warrior? "How do you know about the Super Saiyan?" He hissed warningly, stepping towards the taller monster with fists balled at his sides as though he were crushing something in his palms. Frost watched intently as the prince's interest was piqued, furry, rich brown tail swaying inquisitively. The icejin smirked.

"Who doesn't know of the most powerful being in the universe?" The pallid warrior shrugged. "They say a mere gaze from his eye could cleanse the deepest, darkest soul of any sin. They say even the earth he walked upon could be renewed with hope in his wake, they say his thick golden locks were so blazing they could blind you, saying his very aura could vanquish his enemies," Frost laid out the possibilities like cards upon a casino table. Vegeta leaned in, intrigued. Hook, line, and sinker. "Even I admit that I would have no chance against that mighty being." Frost trailed off in false consideration.

Vegeta was silent, but the icejin could tell his mind was reeling hardly. Little did the cold hearted monster know, the scaffolds of a plan were steadily piling atop each other within Vegeta's compact but adept little mind. "...And you claim, a pitiful moth breather like you, that you could make me all those things?" Frost nodded. "...Even though you just previously stated it was to be your imminent doom? That death would find you at it's hands? Why would you want to plant, water and feed your demise?" Now standing directly in front of the icejin, Vegeta's beady little eyes bored deeply into his opponent. Frost faltered.

"Well, to tell you the truth, I want to be apart of something bigger. Bigger than this," Frost made motions to the wasteland around them. "I can see it now, Lord Frost, unfortunate preceptor to the most powerful warrior in the universe," the icejin pictured wistfully, and Vegeta almost believed it. "I'd rather go down as a legacy than rot down here, living through the hell I'll have to repeat when I die." He smirked, though it wasn't sadistic or evil intended like usual. "I don't have a clean slate exactly. No one here really does."

"Well I call bullshit." Vegeta stated simply, planting a firm kick into Frost's kneecaps and sending his opponent stumbling with a yelp of pain. Vegeta reached behind himself and clutched the shredded remains of his richly tailored red cape, pulling the once-glorious rags from his shoulders and allowing it to ribbon to the ground.

"Over-confidant little prick-" Frost gasped, clutching his knee deplorably. His eyes met Prince Vegeta's, and instead of his usual smirk the icejin's mouth was tightened into a corked line. "Why are you so stubborn? I'm offering everything you could ever wish to have in return for nothing!" The sadist raved, eyes lidded still. The prince had so much potential, to let him get away would be a real waste. As much of an admirable facade he puts on, he should still be youthful and squishy, manipulatable. No defence, especially not a child's, was impregnable.

Vegeta snickered. "True, I want power, but I have shoes to fill, mantles to hold, standards to keep." He looked distastefully around their environment. "Even if it means I'd fufill my destiny as a super saiyan a mere fraction earlier than if I achieved it on my own and without help, I'm the prince of a mighty warrior race and will refuse to belittle myself to your deplorable living conditions."

Frost saw red. "You filthy, ungrateful-"

"That, and, you're terrible at being persuasive." Vegeta rolled his eyes, and Frost grit his teeth.

"Pray tell, Baby King, how I can be more enticing to you?"

"Well, you can start by omitting the insults. How are you going to prove that you respect me as a fighter if every chip of sugar comes with twelve gallons of salt?" Vegeta rolled his eyes, before another, slightly less familiar voice cut into their spat. It was less lean and formal, sounding more like a teenage delinquent more than a levelled warrior, expecting and arrogant.

"I already tried that, but this emotional mess still won't listen to me," Vegeta and Frieza both turned to see the blinding claret blob that was Froze holding a whining Kakarot by his tail. They both looked surprisingly worse for where, with the whites of Coolers eyes looking puffy and tainted with red, bloody splotches littered about his lighter-coloured chest and shins, while Kakarot was dotted with bruises and cuts, hair ruffled more than usual, if that was even possible. "He just won't listen to me," Froze grit out and Kakarot growled, planting his booted foot into Froze's shin and therefore releasing himself as the purple icejin squawked and released his grip on the cub's tail. The little warrior bounced off the ground and scrambled to regain his battle stance, casting Vegeta a pained look over his shoulder. He was growing tired and worn, but the battle was far from over.


	3. Three Uninvited Guests

The Saiyan King Chapter 1: A Tale from the Summer '32, a dragon ball z fanfic | FanFiction

The Lion King and The Lion Guard, along with its general plot and songs are not owned by me. Dragon Ball, Dragon Ball z and Dragon Ball Super do not belong to me. Each franchise is owned by its respective people and companies.

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 **Trigger warning**

 **This fic includes disturbing and possibly triggering content such as abuse, child manipulation, drugs, violence, manipulation and assault. You have been warned!**

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1

1

Goku and Vegeta hurried towards each other, settling their stances back to back so that they were defended from all sides. Both Froze and Frost hissed had circled around them, amusement flashing in their eyes as they stared down their two victims.

Froze crackled his knuckles. "Well, I gotta say, Kakarot, you put up a good fight, but breed-stock will always be breed-stock, and not only did you throw away your only chance at survival with your little magical stick thing, but you've successfully made me mad," he smiled wickedly, and Kakarot sneered challengingly at him. Blood dripped queasily from the vermilion icejin's lip.

Frost budded in his own input soon after. "You really would have made a good super saiyan, Vegeta, but I'm not begging for you to join me, no matter how much wasted potential that would be. You can go fuck yourself. You tried to rip my tail off! My tail!" The pallid icejin ranted, throwing his arms in the air like a fuming child.

"He tried to rip off your tail?" Yet another voice piped in, revealing itself to be the portly Chilled, who was covered head to toe in bumps and bruises, though Nappa behind him looked far worse for wear. Goku gasped in horror and Vegeta grit his teeth in rage as the huge saiyan limped from the shadows, clutching his left arm. His eyes were bulbous and swollen shut, skin bumpy with bruises, shifted bones and popped veins.

Chilled laughed, almost hysterically as he caught sight of his comrade's gored tail, Froze soon catching on to the jest and laughing so hard he began to cough and grip furiously at the indentation made in his stomach by the Power Pole. "Oh my god, Frost, how the fuck did you let that happen?" He howled, wiping tears from his eyes. "How- just why- oh my god,"

Frost could see nothing but red. "No, strop! This isn't funny, none of this is funny! Why are you laughing? Anything is only funny if I find it funny, and this isn't funny!" Frost hissed like a feline, voice crazed. "Shut up!" He yowled lecherously as he quickly aimed a Ki-empowered hand towards Froze, a small ovoid crashing into the side of his comrade's face. Nappa, who had barely gathered himself, quickly motioned to the two cubs standing stiffly by each others sides.

Goku looked at him, eyes wide with confusion as he cocked his head in innocent question, for a short moment disregarding the tension of the battle undergoing around him. Vegeta was rigidly eyeing their opponent's scuffle, clearly losing what ever negligible scraps of respect he had for them as they dignified playground taunts with a response.

He, after careful consideration of their behaviours and actions so far, had played the three Icejins off to be rowdy, sketchy figures of poverty, brains muzzled up by the lingering radiation so much so that they could barely think straight. The simplistic fact that they thought it tactically acceptable injure their own allies in a battle against three worthy opponents was enough to prove their ignorance to basic strategic thinking, something that fighters of their power should have drilled into their minds long ago.

It was as if they were children who had been born with a terrible amount of power but had been reluctant to water and feed it out of their own laziness, instead choosing to fight like street boxers with nothing but the confidence in their own hype to draw them on. They truly were pathetic beings, icejins. Vegeta really had no real respect for them outside of their rumoured power levels, but if they were so vacuous as to act on sibling-like bitterness within the belly of a battle then they didn't even deserve his consideration. Either that, or, they really didn't believe he was a worthy opponent at all. He gripped his hands tighter at the thought.

He truly hated them, all three of them. He hated Frost's squinty red eyes, he hated the way Froze looked at Kakarot. He hated the contended trio's ridiculous grins, and their stupid clucking and their fat, ratty tails and sketchy, high toned voices that just made his ears pop. He wanted to beat their faces in, and with a new resolution, he promised himself that he would do so while exacting upon them the most dire of humiliation and pain.

Vegeta was pulled from his salty pondering by a nudge from Kakarot's elbow, quite rough as though the younger saiyan had been doing it to him for a while with no response, or like a suggested challenge. Vegeta really hoped that Kakarot didn't intend to fight with him while their enemies battled; it seemed like something his naive friend would get up to, but instead Goku was motioning wildly towards Nappa, who they quickly approached with elevating speed.

"See, Daddy always liked me more than you! That's why I was the heir to inherent the business, not you, you worm-" Frost decked Froze in the face, sending his slightly more buff comrad careening to the deserted grounds they were fighting above. Despite the rumbling tremor sent through the land upon Froze's collision with the ground or the small trench left in his wake, Froze launched back into the air like a rocket, unharmed and ready for blast-off. Neither noticed the usually dull Chilled scanning the area with his buggy eyes suspiciously, scratching away the dirt on his elbows. He hated being dirty.

"Ha, maybe, but that's probably just because he wanted to spend more time training me to be the mightiest warrior in the universe while you were buried chin-deep in paperwork, administrations and expensive responsibility!" Froze's hard built head slammed into Frost's chin, and the smaller icejin whirled a few long yards back with a pained yell.

"-Y-you- salty bastard! I would have been buried forehead-deep in wine, pretty paramours and money as a result!" Frost returned, brimming with revenge for the teeth rattling blow to his jaw by twisting Froze's ankle and sending the claret monster into a near airship rusting away the rest of it's sad life among the remaining rubble.

The damaged icejin pulled himself free, glaring. "Hah, after dealing with fat, lecherous nobles and planetary royal snobs," Froze hissed in rebuttal, preparing to charge once more when the dim-witted Chilled intervened with his fluttery voice.

"Speaking of pretty paramours, lecherous nobles and planetary royal snobs- did we order our dinner to go?" The two scrabbling Icejins turned to Chilled with startled looks on their faces. "Because there it goes!"

Froze, Frost and Chilled didn't even notice their company was gone until they realised how unnaturally quiet their opponents were and swerved around frantically, just in time to see three furry, brows tails disappear behind an upturned trench.

2

Prince Vegeta had never run so fast in his life. He ran so fast he couldn't even see his own feet, which had been reduced to skewed blurs barely tapping the ground as he bolted. He ran past the corpses of solders and airships alike, ran over lumps of parched bone and sedimentary matter, ignoring the rips and blemishes it left in his previously perfect boots, the mustard-yellow tips already crumpled and scrunched like an elite's nose when they smelt the pungent odour of poverty.

He could feel Kakarot booking it behind him, breathing heavily as he fought to keep up with the lithe Prince, but Vegeta was dreaded to realise that Nappa seemed to have taken a different direction, possibly to split up the trio of Icejins that would surely come after them.

Vegeta not only had to wrangle with his stamina, but with his saiyan pride as he and his best friend tore through the unfamiliar levels of wastland that shrouded them like a disease. Saiyans never ran from fights, yet here he was, disembowelling the very reason he set out to come to the blasted ruins. He wanted to prove his bravery, and yet now he was showing even less courage than that of the slummers and tramps.

Nappa, however, had indeed taken another path, hoping to lead the Icejins away from the Prince and his future mate. He ran as fast as he fucking could but it wasn't enough, as he felt a familiar three-toed foot embed itself in the crook of his back, right where, just a few hours earlier, Prince Vegeta had sent a Ki blast. He howled in pain at the far more pestilent assault, grunting as his hard head smashed into the dead earth.

Meanwhile, the two cubs found themselves panting and wheezing with their backs against the crackling carcass of a particularly mammoth airship, it's cables wiring out of its metallic skin like tortured arms and hung blankly over the two saiyan cubs. They were both very exhausted by their aimless sprint.

"W-where's Nappa?" Kakarot breathed, head revolving around with fright for the fate of their assigned protector. Goku would never be able to forgive himself if he found himself responsible for the noble warror's demise. He'd feel like a murderer.

3

"Aargh!" Nappa hollered as the three giggling Icejins dragged him, quite like a sack of rolling potatoes, towards a boiling-over cauldron like pod, oils and various other unsafe liquids piping within its pursed lips like a spar. Each of the Icejins were perfectly capable, despite his violent struggling, of hauling his large body towards the make shift boiler. Each one had restrained his limbs and the advisor's nerves were still spazzing and tingling from the sensitive area on his spinal chord being damaged. He was thoroughly incapacitated.

"Time for the major right hand man to hippity-hoppity all he way to the baldy boiler," Froze cackled, his comrades sizzling in amusement as Froze acted like a puppeteer to the larger Saiyan, forcing him to walk like a doll towards quite the painful fate indeed.

Nappa's eyes widened as he caught on the where he was being leaded. "Oh no, not the baldy boiler!" He wailed as he was shoved into the scalding pot of liquid, yowling in pain as it scorched his usually thick, resilient skin and leaving red, blistering, bulbous blemishes upon the skin that contacted the lethal concoct. The three icejin's eyes were alit with glee at his suffering however, uncaring to the heated steam that blew in their faces.

"Aarrgh!" Nappa yowled as the pod he was stuffed into shot into the air with only a small encouragement from the three giddy sadists, who were howling with laughter on the ground as they watched the advisor take off to the air very much like a rocket. They had buckling knees and were falling to the ground in great humour, as nothing could brighten their day like another's pain.

"Hey, why don't you pick on someone your own size?" A piecing voice cut into their fun, and each icejin lazily composed themselves, not in the slightest interested in formalities. They turned their attention to a small ledge in their base, and there they saw a pair of rather angry looking saiyan cubs, staring down at them with fire burning in their black eyes.

"Like you?" Frost grinned toothily and watched as Prince Vegeta's face fell from his previous confidence with satisfied muse.

"Oops," Vegeta's revelation was clear to all, and Kakarot even managed to catch a break from his own muddled state to give his usually hardy friend an incredulous glare.

Frost, who had last spoken, propelled his leith mass forward with frighting grace, yet he snapped his teeth and snarled like the rabid canine he looked like in personality. The Icejin's red eyes glinted, and Kakarot let out a startled yelp as he and his best friend reeled away to avoid Frost's animalistic onslaught so that said monster's white fangs only grazed the furs of their tails. Prince Vegeta looked back to catch glimpses of Frost's two cronies, who he had picked up to be called Froze and Chilled, follow suit after their trio patriarch.

Both he and Kakarot turned their focus away from their pursuers and instead on a steady getaway, though the unlucky pair didn't get very far. It was only after a few meters of weaving leanly around terrace and debris that they almost charged into a jutting steam eruption of chemicals and radiation from a near gas leak in the ground. Prince Vegeta could hear Kakarot scream in alarm as three ghostly familiar faces appeared throughout the toxic mist, each simultaneously yelling, "boo!" In their crackly, haggard yet somehow sheeny voices.

They cackled amongst themselves before leaping forward once more in attempt the grab at the pair of youthful cubs in what could be a lethal grip. Kakarot and Vegeta both relented by twisting around and altering their direction, though not without their opponents biting at their heels as they fled.

Frost knew he could very well just speed up and wrangle the two cubs to the ground before they could even think to call for help, but it was both amusing and hellishly satisfying to see the usually prideful, arrogant enemies of his race cower and run from his influence. It warmed his heart enough to allow them to live for a notable amount of time. Seeing the fear in their eyes was a pleasurable bliss for him.

Goku wanted to hiss at the splinters of chipped bone that he kicked up from the ground when he rounded any particularly rough corners, and he found that his stamina was slowly slipping. Prince Vegeta, who was a few steps ahead of him had quite the advantage with his training due to being a prodigy alpha who was constantly kept in the most suitable conditions to cultivate his growth to becoming a worthy King and hardy warrior, while Goku felt that he was kept away from more dire training like that of the saibamen. In the back of his mind, though he never really liked to think about it, he wished he wasn't a beta. Maybe if he was an alpha like Vegeta he'd be stronger and more able to keep up with his friend in situations like this. Maybe, he frowned, people would stop babying him and let him train with the saibamen.

After another desperate scramble to escape a close clip with the jowls of one of the Icejins, Kakarot promised to himself that, no matter what anyone said or lectured, he would improve his training conditions. When he scraped by a particularly bladed chunk of scrap-metal, possibly once from the automatic doors of an escape pod, and felt small tides of dark blood run down to his elbow from the flesh would now inflicted, a horrible thought finally flashed through his mind and made him truly realise what was at stake each time one of his attackers almost got a hit in on his exposed back.

Would he make it out of this? He must, he would, right? There was still so much he needed to do before- he died. He needed to be there to greet Raditz when he got home from his off-planet excursion, he still needed to learn how to fly like Vegeta, he needed t go say hi to Master Roshi, needed to grow stronger and prove that betas were more than dolls you could give away. For the first time that day, Goku almost considered his bucket list as, instead, a list of things he wished he done before he died. Almost. With a renowned courage and determination to succeed Kakarot burst forward. He didn't understand why he was thinking so negatively. There was a way out of this. The was always a way.

Ignorant to his friend's internal washing-machine of emotions, Prince Vegeta clambered, cloaked in skewed shadows, up the familiar haunting front of the Oozaru skull's face, knotting his protective shoulder pads and flailing gloves within the wavering cobwebs netted throughout the monster's anatomy. Still high on adrenaline, Goku followed suit, strongly leaping from the ground and clambering upwards straight from the exoskeleton's eye sockets.

He grit his teeth as he, still being a few centimetres behind Vegeta, felt spindly clawed fingers rake loosely down his calf muscle, yelping in pain as he felt his own blood pooling redly in the wrappings stemming upwards from his martial arts shoes. Instinctually bounding away from the source of his pain and headfirst into the prince, he sent them both careening down the Oozaru's spinal chord like some sickly built slide.

Vegeta, who was in front and therefore had the best view of their eventual destination, gulped as instead of sturdy ground he saw mounds upon gruesome mounds of dead bodies and bones, the air thickly accented with rot, time and decay. He winced as is friend behind him clawed skittishly at his back, trying in vain to ascertain a sturdy grip on something in order to steady his whirling world. Vegeta put up with it, however, knowing that it was the younger who had likely sustained the most damage from their three attackers.

With a sickening, scream like crunch they reached the crescent curved end of the Oozaru's spine, flung uselessly into the air like tossed rag dolls. Vegeta writhed in attempt to control his Ki in time to save both Kakarot and himself from a nasty landing amongst an assembly of serrated remains, but the intensity of the situation proved to bet to much and instead they suffered the worst of the two options.

Prince Vegeta could hear the bones of fallen enemies and comrades alike crush and bend under their interference with their steady decomposition, but had no time to think about such an underlying dishonour as he scrambled to gather a secure grip, bloodied hands so numb from all their scrapes and oozing wounds that he was able to ignore the damage and scramble upwards to create a safer distance between him and his attackers. Damn him and his pride and his bad choices, wanting to go back to help Nappa knowing that the doofus would be perfectly fine. Nappa may not be the sharpest knife in the crayon box, but he certainly was capable as a fighter.

From a small, slightly clouded distance away strode Frost, Froze and Chilled, still trotting at a mocking and lazy pace. Their jaws sagged open in stupid grins as they approached the scrambling cubs, who were still desperately wrestling with their grips.

Vegeta, who's hands were by far more calloused from his intensive training sessions and extreme pain tolerance, found himself able to make the top in an accomplished time, pulling himself away from the whetted reckless of bones with a heave of relief. If he just had time to get a hold of himself he could perhaps think of a way to get both him and his flightless companion away from danger, assuming that the three crafty Icejins wouldn't make to follow them into the sky. Before he could even begin to make good of his plan, a pained yell cut through to his consciousness.

"Vegeta!" He couldn't help but gasp at what he saw. Kakarot, who was usually boyish yet prettied (by his family) was now garbed in countless cuts and scrapes, nothing as serious as to scar but still able to bloody him almost scarily. His fringe was matted around his face and his eyes were widened with grit and panic, hands clawing almost angrily at the bones for any amount grip. He had seemed to land on a particularly unstable patch of bones and, instead of ascending like Vegeta himself, was tumbling further and further to his fate at the hands of the Icejins. Kakarot let out one last panicked scream before he finally lost his last pathetic hold.

Prince Vegeta didn't know what it was. It may have been the fear across Kakarot's face or the rarity of the almost unnervingly fretful yelp that escaped his lips, but Vegeta found himself renewed with bustling determination, a sneer on his face challenging both himself and the three Icejins closing in on his friend. He surfed down the sea of remains, propelling himself off the mound with his legs in one last gain of speed before planting his boots masterfully into Frost's temple just as the reptilian monster was about to send a Ki blast to Goku's back and sending the shocked being turmoiling towards the scratchy earth it claimed as its own.

Frost, who was still for a short moment, turned his gaze towards his victims. His eyes were darker than before.

With no time to spare, Prince Vegeta quickly propped Kakarot up with his shoulder and side by side, the two cubs manipulated the ki under their boots to much more efficiently clear the rack of bones and finally cover the plot of land they had struggled so relentlessly with. Vegeta couldn't help but be pleased with himself.

Still hurrying along, the cubs sprinted through a temporary break in the wreckage, diving through a shady cove of upturned rock formation, sweat pooling down their brows and panting. By this point in time their adrenaline, the driving force to their small successes, finally began to waver in its supply, and exaughstion was beginning to make itself more visibly known. Goku wasn't sure where he was going anymore, only really focussing on the blood pulsing through his veins and the loud thuds it was making.

His reverie only made it worse when they encountered yet another steep, bony cove, though this one only housed crumbling erosion and the cadaver of an aged warship. They struggled up its circular Windows and its upturned wings until finally the ancient mechanic collapsed, sending the two heavily to the ground like dead bodies.

Goku didn't get up right away, his shoulders twitching with pain, but Vegeta still scrambled to his palms with a low groan of denial. Clutching his chest, Kakarot soon steadily rose to his feet, though his knees were quaking and looking as though they could buckle at the slightest influence or change of breeze. Vegeta also looked worse for wear— his fringe tangled, windows peek matted with fluid and with cuts and scrapes dressing his skin all about. A small line of blood dripped down his chin from where he bit his lip.

Vegeta grit his teeth and moved so that he stood as a flesh shield infront of his friend. It had been he that had gotten Kakarot tangled up in this mess, all to prove himself as brave, when in reality it would just end up killing him and possibly the only other saiyan to care about him for any other reason besides personal gain. Seeing his best friend curl himself against the dead wall, tail twitching erratically and eyes wide full of fear made guilt twist at the Prince's gut. Kakarot was only nine years old. No saiyan should die so young.

Sly cackling informed them that they were no longer alone. Frost, Froze, and Chilled sauntered towards them, the shadows illuminating their glowing eyes so that they looked like monsters, their large heads swaying and shoulders rolling. The Prince could see the excitement in their eyes, and it sickened him.

With a roar Prince Vegeta tightened his fists and allowed his suppressed power to run freely underneath his skin, rattling lose debris and rising little pebbles centimetres off the ground. He yelled as his broken muscles tightened and stretched until he could feel his skin stretch, muscles bulging. He felt his knees quake and threaten to buckle underneath his weight, yet he grit his teeth together and refused. He bluffed and tufted his power, but according to the three Icejin's mocking grins, it just wasn't enough. Vegeta ignored the dread twisting at his gut.

"Ooh, that was it? Hah!" Frost clucked, chest heaving as he and his cronies rutted like gargoyles. The little prince felt biting rage claw at his mind, blanketing his usually rational mind as if someone had thrown a rug of mule skin over a fire. He grit his teeth and began to shake, before finally letting free a gruesome raw, the surrounding terrain crackling and disembowelling itself, mangling and mauling and warping its own geography until everything and all was unstable with pure, unadulterated power.

"H-huh?" Was all the Icejins could manage, jaws loosened.

A huge wave of energy swept through the area, and a large, magnificent figure bowled into the three Icejins with a frightening power that blinded all five of the other residents. Froze didn't even know what hit him when a stunning weight crashed into his ribs, sending him toppling unorthodoxy to the ground with a horrid 'smack'. He scrambled away as the same weight abandoned him in favour of elbowing Frost in the chest, sending his comrade yards away with only a single connected hit. Froze, who had tripped under the jump scare and landed painfully on his shoulder, quickly recovered and attempted to land a parasitic kick to his attacker's lower spine, but it merely bounced off and his whole body was deflected by a mere flick of the monstrous interferer's palm.

As Froze was propelled into the grasp of a cobweb grave Frost limped his way back to the scene of the battle, chest still throbbing from being pounded so powerfully, and sprung up with feline grace to land on his new opponent's back, clawing at it like a rabid animal in his rage. Everything had been going so well, he couldn't afford disruptions.

Froze, who also recovered, leapt savagely at the godly powerful monster's front, swaddling his plummy hands around it's neck and applying as much pressure as he could, biding time for both Chilled to recover and for Frost to hopefully incapacitate their contended. The trio of delinquents' attacks seemed to have no effect on the stranger, however, as he ripped the red icejin from his skin with his bare hands and, at a speed even Frost, the fastest of the trio, couldn't comprehend, backed into a near ridge and crushed the small, pallid icejin against it.

After Frost's scream of pain ringed through Chilled's ear, the portliest of the three Icejins raced forward, and as soon as he was in proximity, placed a thundering uppercut to the monster's chin, sending his opponent rocketing a few meters upward through the air. Potent power and unstable Ki crackled around Chilled's fist, and he panted. No mortal should be able to withstand his enhanced fist, as he was undoubtably the brawniest and physically strongest of his pack. For a moment Chilled was stone cold sober, his eyes connecting with the rage-crazed ones of his opponent. He realised with rapidly increasing horror that his supposedly undefeated fist had no significant effect on his enemy. This was no mere mortal-

It was then that an angry fist introduced itself to his cladded jaw, sending Chilled flying back at great speeds. Not willing to waste his combo opportunity, the intruder revolved around with an affective burst of stormy Ki and placed a well timed back-punch to his orange victim's cranium, sending the dull icejin into the ground along with his own knee, which quickly found homage buried deep into the sensitive back muscles of Chilled.

Prince Vegeta didn't even realise Nappa had landed shakily by them until he felt a large, comforting hand settle upon his back and rub in comforting, circular motions. Nappa leaned forward and gathered the frozen Kakarot with his thick tail, pulling the beta closer as he shook with both awe, exhaustion and shock. The youngest saiyan leaned into the embrace, shaking slightly. All that had happened in the last few hours was a lot to take in, and having your life switch like a light from in danger of being ended to safety had him quaking in relief. Goku had fought tough many opponents, but none as sinister as the three Icejins currently being mauled.

Not once did Vegeta's eyes leave the scene in front of him.

Spurred on by the intruder's grunts of releasing anger and their comrade's yells of pain, Froze and Frost made to leap back into the rally when a hard surface smashed into their temples and they found themselves rolling across the ground, skirting over each other's flailing limbs like rolling pins as they emitted various yelps and cries. It seemed that the mysterious intruder had thrown Chilled at them like a bowling ball.

Before the three could make to stand what little left of visible sunlight was blackened out of their immediate vision, indicating a large figure was looming insidiously over them. They wheezed and rattled with fear, red eyes trembling in the might of the mysterious warrior's wake. They were out matched, out classed, out numbered and possibly at the end of their lives. They chattered and mumbled nervously between each other, sweat pooling down their faces.

"-ow, ow, ow, ouch, ow-" Frose snivelled at his aches and bumps.

"Oh, please please please-" Frost grovelled sheepishly. Froze only juggled a collection of strange swollen sounds from his bruised throat.

"Silence!" King Vegeta's powerful, resonating voice reverberated throughout the hollow battlefield like a blaring siren, and the three Icejins pinned underneath him quivered like little feathers, rushing to collect the words in order form a coherent sentence. They shrank into their own bodies, wincing.

"Oh, we're gonna shut up right now-" Froze jittered.

"Ah-ha, we're really sorry-" Frost tried. Chilled shuttered and hugged himself weakly, fatted shoulders squishing his other two comrades together.

All three Icejins cowered at the herculean, reining patriarch's might. They saw, blazing within the King's eyes, unbridled fury beyond what they had ever seen before. Frost came to the startling revelation that it was that of a guardian standing by the guarded, a dragon in defence of his glittering treasure, a father protecting his son. For the first time in his life, Frost was scared, and he despised it.

"If you ever come near my son again..." The King left the threat hanging, but the three Icejins could only imagine what horror he would exact up them, and each one shivered as the monstrously strong beast leaned in towards them, baring his teeth. His eyes seemed to be glowing with as much power as his stance, and Froze briefly wondered if their victorious opponent was a super saiyan, though it was drowned out by renowned hope that he and his comrades may survive this situation if they played their cards correctly.

"Agh, this is- this is your son?" Frost strutted sheepishly. He and Froze were both laughing uneasily, attempting to lighten the situation as if the assault on the Prince was all but a simple misunderstanding between good friends. "D-did you know that, Froze?" Frost grinned widely at his partner, seemingly thousands of mixed messages flashing in his red, beefy eyes.

"No, Frost! I- I didn't know that," Froze was quick to assure, urging himself to sound as if he was repenting for his sins and asking for forgiveness. A simple miscommunication between friends indeed. "No, did you?" He turned back to Frost unsurely, as if questioning his friend's motives.

"No, of course not!" Frost's voice was far more squeaky than usual, having raised a few octaves in his fearful mess.

"Chilled?" They both turned to the last of their trio expectantly, and for a while silence hung in the air. Still shaking but with a surprisingly jovial air, Chilled nodded vigorously. When scared he wasn't usually able to lie very well, and so the truth just came spilling out.

King Vegeta roared once more and all three Icejins squeaked, shrinking back and grabbing onto each other for support as they quailed. At this point, neither cared about pride or honour. "Ehh- toodles," Froze yipped before he, Frost and Chilled wormed out of King Vegeta's grasp, untangling their limbs and bolting away as fast as their throbbing limbs could take them in a matter of seconds.

For a while King Vegeta stood, disdain for their cowardice clear on his face as he watched the trio of pests disappear into the distant dystopia. The reigning saiyan simply couldn't fathom how such a race would be able to display such disgraceful plagues to their reputations, cowering in the face of death instead of facing it honourably like one should. It utterly disgusted him to no end they they continued to tarnish the earth they walked upon with their presence, but he refused to end three lives while in the presence of cubs such as Kakarot. Apparently unlike his son, he was considerate of his peoples' wellbeing.

Nappa quietly edged away from Kakarot's grip, quietly padding forward to stand by his King with a blank, sorrowful expression that made even the king's spirits fall. His advisor was usually so eccentric that seeing him so downtrodden was quite unpleasant. He attempted to nod pleasingly at the King, artificial enthusiasm plastered upon his face in an effort to relight the mood with some after-battle cheer, but King Vegeta sent him a withering glare. Now was not the time for happy endings and celebratory hugs. He ignored the pang in his heart when Nappa's expression fell like a potted plant from a window sill in favour of his much more comfortable vexation. His son had better have a good reason for his little excursion.

Prince Vegeta instantly snapped out of his daze, shaking his head and padding fourth to explain himself to his father though nervousness and worry pricked muckily at his gut. The ground felt impossibly stiffer under his boots, but as the small sound resonated Kakarot quickly gathered himself and tiptoed lightly after him, as if even a single peep of sound would provoke the King into in untameable rage. Personally, Goku didn't want the King to do to him what he had done to the Icejins.

With a terrible unhappiness Vegeta regarded those surrounding himself deeply for the first time. Nappa seemed to still be covered in burns, bruises and loosely shut flesh wounds, though the distinct aroma wafting from the advisor's thick, welted skin signified a hasten, quick treatment allowing him just enough energy to travel back to the scene of the battle alongside King Vegeta. The huge saiyan's tail tip, he realised with spurring guilt, was twisted at an odd angle, while his shoulder was sporting a nasty dark lump, probably a dislocated limb only recently replaced, once more likely the work of a few quick, high end rejuvenation pills.

Behind him, Kakaot was adorned with blotches of darkened, swelling skin, his gi all but destroyed around his knees though it had fared surprisingly well considered his beat down. Vegeta winced as he realised it had cloaked most of his mor effecting injuries. His eyes were wide with fear and apprehension yet he stumbled slightly, drunk on relief. Their little escapade could have ended horribly, and they barely escaped said ominous outcome by the furs in their tails.

He gulped and turned to his father, eyes drooping and shoulders sagged. "...Father, I-"

"You deliberately disobeyed me." King Vegeta lashed out, swerving to face his son and greeting the little cub with all the burning effects of his glare. Prince Vegeta felt asphyxiated, but refused to show weakness in front of Nappa and Kakarot. He lowered his sharp chin in shame for his actions.

"Father, I- I'm sorry-" Vegeta eyed the ground, black orbs falling upon his bedraggled boots. He really was apologetic, but had a hard time expressing it in the words that seemed to be needed. Prince Vegeta never really was good with emotions.

"Let's go home." The contrast lighting illuminated King Vegeta's towering form as he turned away from his kin, brown tail lashing around his ankles angrily until he signed resignedly and made to wrap it around his waist. The clip of his much cleaner boots across the grubby ground was enough to signal his departure to any of those who had averted their eyes, Prince Vegeta included. There truly was nothing worse then disappointing his father, especially because the only reason he had ventured to the ungodly graveyard in the first place was to prove himself as worthy. Kings had to be brave.

Nappa glided after his boss glumly, casting the two cubs lagging behind a quick, forlorn glance to make sure they could keep up with their sustained injuries.

Kakarot and Vegeta began their trek after the two older saiyans, shoulders drooping as they moved. Kakarot was gazing at the ground with lidded, glazed eyes, recalling the events prior to the lecture. He cast his best friend a quick glance. "I thought you were very brave." He inquired quietly, though it wasn't upbeat or encouraging like usual, merely a statement. Vegeta looked away in shame as he fell into step with his friend, avoiding eye contact as his tail tightened around his waist. Kakarot closed his eyes and looked forward, light glittering upon the top of his hair as he exited the dark umbra they had been cornered in.

Up, far higher and nestled within the tight grip of the piling megaliths stood Paragus, watching over the unfolding events darkly. No one noticed him.

2

The sky was mellow and pink as the sun descended like a sinking submarine in a soupy lake, the final yawns of the townsfolk falling upon death ears as the small group of high-ranking saiyans padded through, each with their heads craned in exhaustion. It had been a long day, and no-one had the energy or motivation to appreciate the particularly stunning dusk.

The widows had watered the family garth and unwound the shutters, lit the hearth and settled down with steady beverages to dine and chat with the family. Solders and warriors had returned from a long day of training and protocol, muscles tired and in need of ointment and massage, while the final remaining clusters of market goers dispersed to return home with bulging bassinets of various abundances of fruits, vegetables and saplings, and those who owned stalls were busy dismantling their tents. The quadruple payed no mind to the questioning stares, instead looking pointedly forward in the direction they were headed with tired eyes.

The only noise was the chirping of crickets. Everyone was to afraid to speak.

Kakarot and Prince Vegeta were walking side by side, neither daring to speak nor make a sound. Much had happened today, and neither wanted to face the consequences. Both the prince and his future consort's limping had subsided, as their saiyan genes had picked up where the two small tablets of rejuvenation Nappa had bought had left off.

Goku let his gaze drift aloft from it's stiff glare forward, eyes softening but still drooping sadly as they met the side of Prince Vegeta's face. Kakarot couldn't recall a time where he had seen his friend so quiet and miserable. It unnerved him. Instead of attempting to make conversation as he usually would, the youngest saiyan of the group returned to trotting sullenly, neck craned forward as he shifted his weight from foot to foot. Vegeta continued to stare at his feet, no emotions playing across his face. It was as if he were dead.

Nappa, who was hovering about a few feet infront of the pair, watched the exchange with a heavy heart. How could a wonderful day have ended so unpleasantly?

It wasn't long before they had entered a quiet knoll, sheltered from the last bustle of the growing night. Lush grass battered eerily in the wind, which whistled and howled as it weaved in between the tree leaves and rattling branches. Kakarot couldn't help but shiver, though kept any other physical evidence of his discomfort on the low as to not disturb the mood. King Vegeta, however, caught on. He was much more observant than he was given credit for, really.

It was then that his spearing voice impaled the depression. "Nappa." King Vegeta's tone wasn't at all pleasant as he uttered that single word. That word still held a thousand emotions. The King was stalking forward, shoulders elevating with his forward steps as he bit down on his lip and clenched his hands. In his voice was anger, loathing, relief, concern, regret, and frustration, though he hid his more parental emotions far more thickly. The advisor couldn't help but flinch as he snapped to action, ready to obey his master's every command to his most apt and fullest ability.

"Take Kakarot home." King Vegeta hissed loudly. There was a rapidly darkening scowl on his face. "I've got to teach my son a lesson."

A few meters back Kakarot and Prince Vegeta had overheard the exchange when it had first began, settling down quickly from their pace and staring intently and alarmingly at the King and his advisor. The sun shone prettily behind them as it said its final graces and continued its decent. It wasn't hard to notice that, while Kakarot's face was creased with worry, Vegeta's was stony and emotionless, though he visibly shrank back like a recoiling snake at being referred to through his father's gritted teeth. Goku only sent him a pitying glance.

Nappa was stern and robotic as he approached the two cubs, settling his hand upon the smaller beta's head and ruffling at the wild, dark hair fondly. "Come, Kakarot," Nappa showed less feeling in his words than his actions. Goku looked to the ground. "Vegeta?" The advisor then turned blankly to the little Prince before him, kneeled down and placed his burly hands upon Vegeta's shoulders. The comically huge limbs almost encircled the cub's whole upper back. "Good luck." He breathed finally.

Vegeta looked on hopelessly as the huge saiyan hobbled back over to his friend, feeling quite betrayed. For a small while Kakarot looked back at Vegeta as he padded away after Nappa, eyes full of sorrow and apologies, but neither made to speak, as if any communication outside orders were against the unwritten rules of father-scolding-son moments. Vegeta briefly wondered if Bardock would have a go at Kakarot for their escapade too, but Goku never usually got in trouble for their adventures and most of the blame was usually diverted back to he himself by his friend's biased parents.

The prince didn't face his father right away, merely staring blankly into the distance in an attempt to put off the inevitable. Prince Vegeta didn't even realise his tail had dropped pathetically from around his waist to the ground in defeat until it was itchy from the gelled grass.

"Vegeta!" The king's powerful voice resonated, causing him to flinch and squint his eyes shut, blocking out all sounds but his beating heart. Slowly and cautiously, though not without much self encouragement to build his confidence, Prince Vegeta swerved in his father's direction and stalked over as quietly and lightly as he could manage.

He felt more shameful as he had ever felt as he made those few pitiful strides' towards his fate, and in his trance he wasn't prepared to step down a slightly steep indentation in the ground. He stumbled forward slightly, eyes wide and pitiful before he quietly gathered himself and looked down upon what seemed to be a large footprint, easily identified as his father's posh, seated boot. His own foot was far smaller in it's outline.

Vegeta looked back up, distraught, to his father, and after not receiving a response, quietly toddled closer to the leering beats that was the reining King of the saiyans and so many others under their omnipotent rule. He slowly sat down and, with a small gaze, glimpsed cautiously upwards. This time the King responded, looking down on him pressingly.

"Vegeta I'm very disappointed in you." He began with a scowl that made chills wither up the little prince's spine like beetles. King Vegeta sighed, pinching his temple in thought.

"I know..." The prince's voice was devoid of its usual pride. He was a dejected mess.

"You could have been killed!" King Vegeta pressed on urgently. He leaned forward and grit his teeth. He knew his child was prideful and reckless, but this was unbelievable. He not only endangered the life of himself, but his best friend and most trusted guard. King Vegeta grunted and gulped down an intake of breath before he pulled back and looked to the night sky. It really was so very hard to find trust in your comrades these days. "You disobeyed a direct order! And what's worse, you put Kakarot in danger!" His larger eyes balled the back of Prince Vegeta's down turned head.

Prince Vegeta flinched away, but he finally seemed to gather the courage to once again meet his father's questioning eyes, though not after mulling over what he was about to say. He really hated talking about feelings. "I juh-just wanted to be brave like you." He hated how his voice was strained and cracked. He felt so weak and pathetic.

King Vegeta softened. "I'm only brave when I have to be," King Vegeta sighed, looking over the little prince, concern and hints of desperation within his eyes. It made Prince Vegeta wince. "Vegeta, being brave doesn't mean going looking for trouble."

"-But saiyans aren't scared of anything. I am Vegeta, Prince of all Saiyans! Y-you're not scared of anything." Prince Vegeta's tone was alit with confusion. Saiyans were a proud, influential warrior race, the strongest in all the universe, especially he, his father and their blood line. It made no sense that they should be able to fear; they were gods amongst mortals.

King Vegeta looked away, only spurring his son's emotions. "I was today." That was the sentence that blanked out all of Prnce Vegeta's thoughts and he opted to stare, caught entirely off guard. "Yes, I thought I might loose you." The King kneeled in front of his son, locking eye contact. Never in Prince Vegeta's short life had a stare told so many stories.

"I- guess even kings get scared, huh?" Prince Vegeta didn't look away. Neither did King Vegeta.

"Son, I believe it's time I told you the story of the Golden Warrior." King Vegeta settled in a relaxed position next to his son, who was still staring at him with announced awe. The little prince blinked in confusion and scrunched his nose, as if repulsed.

"You mean the Super Saiyan? Peh, I've heard that story one to many times. A huge, golden Oozaru rises to the heaven with golden fur and godlike strength so powerful that it lost its mind and went mad with power and killed itself, or something. It's all the little third class cubs always talk about." Vegeta's tail twitched with agitation. How could this perfect moment be addled by a silly fairy-tale? It was like throwing a rock at a meditator.

King Vegeta, however, shook his head. "That really is just the talk of the children, I'm afraid. The true Golden Warrior, however, is not." His voice was deep, steady as the calm of night. Prince Vegeta was entranced by his words, cocking his head to the side to promote his interest. King Vegeta took that as a sign to continue. "The Super Saiyan's ascension was more than a mind-fuck of power that drew him over the edge of insanity. What drew him over the edge of insanity was in fact actually the trigger for the transformation."

"He and the Saiyan race were combatting an impossible foe. They lost. He and his friend were the last of the battalion alive. Their names were Bejita and Velarius." King Vegeta's eyes had turned a constellation-blue, reflecting Planet Vegeta's solemn night sky. "Bejita and Velarious- their names were pregnant mush on the streets of poverty, and yet, glaring into the eyes of their fate, they still swore, in their pride as saiyans, to never give into their death without a fight."

Prince Vegeta's swaying tail stilled, fists clenching the grass whiskered between his fingers as he pulled it from the ground. "Velarious... I've heard that before. That name. Wasn't he, like, the beta God? I always hear the females praying to him in the gardens. Even Kakarot mentioned him once, and he knows religion as much as he knows advanced strategic formulas." The little prince wasn't dull witted, there was more to his mind than his power-is-all-that-matters mindset. He was more observant than people gave him credit for, really.

King Vegeta nodded. "Yes, Vegeta, but gods aren't just birthed by the cosmos."—Which was strange, Vegeta thought they were— "they rise from legacies. Now don't interrupt." The King slyly flicked his tail by his son's nose, causing the disgruntled prince to flinch with surprise. The King chuckled, but it didn't reach his eyes very much. In the darkness, Vegeta couldn't really see his father's eyes.

"It was when Velarious had suffered a severe head injury that he felt his end draw near. He couldn't feel his legs, couldn't move. A monster had risen from the shadows, lifted him to the sky and, with a mighty implode of Ki, destructed him. Bejita was so enraged by the death of his comrade, his- friend, that he flashed golden with unabridged power and utilised that rage to decimate the monsters they were fighting. He was unable to save himself, in the end." King Vegeta was quite silent for a while, and Prince Vegeta didn't respond easily.

"Why isn't that common knowledge? And how could the death of another effect someone so?" Prince Vegeta frowned, the farmed plantae around his nails withered and wilting as their throats were cut in the child's frustration. King Vegeta mostly ignored him.

"Our dynasty, 'Vegeta', was derived from a combination of the two names, Bejita and Velarious, because it wasn't just Bejita who won. Without Velarious, Bejita very well may not have achieved his stupendous power and defeated the monsters."

Prince Vegeta was boring holes into his father. "Who were the monsters they fought, father?" Prince Vegeta cocked his head. They sounded dreadful, (though exiting); monsters strong enough to only be defeated by the Golden Warrior.

" _Themselves, my son. They were fighting themselves_."


	4. The Seven Eyes

**1**

He had been so mad. Bardock had been so mad.

Goku wasn't used to his father being so mad he'd plummet his fists into the flesh of the beige walls, so mad that the lamps and kitchenware would trample and ratter like filters, so mad that his eyes had seemed to match the red of Froze's own, or that bandanna he tied so aggressive-fondly around his forehead was as wrinkled as an old boot.

Goku whined as he buried himself deep within the gentle grip of his comforter, plush beddings and textiles sheltering his smaller form from the outside world like a protective dome. In his fingers he drew his quilts tight around his squinted eyes until darkness was more prominent than the skimpy red light filtering from behind the speckled leather skin of his oil lamp.

Down stairs he could hear his father cursing, gauntleted fists whistling through the air loudly. "Bardock! Calm duh-down! You're going to ruin the house-" his mother called. He could imagine her frantically shoving his father away from any damageable objects, which he could see being quite the difficult task as everything was reduced to a damageable object when subjected to Bardock's wrath. Raditz still wasn't home to react in his own flawed way. Goku missed Raditz.

With a whine he coaxed his tail to entangle itself with the dishevelled gi-material still hugging loosely at his leg as the red of the waxen lamp fingered through the fluffy accumulation of felt that was bundled like a blindfold over his eyes. He tried his hardest to shiver away the curdling colour from his mind, but it was insistent on haunting him, just as Froze was currently doing.

With a small, weakly roar, he wrestled his comforters away from his smaller body and pursed his hand in the direction of the oil lamp, white-washes of throttling, foamy ki spraying over the light source like a shower of mustard gas. Goku breathed hard as he watched the oil lamp wither and seizure on the tanned marble of his floors, his acidic life energy burning holes into it's body as it screamed as much as an oil lamp could manage. After a small while all movement from Kakarot's victim seemed to have surrendered, and the only remaining audio seemed to be the radical plunge of Goku's chest as his fluffy tail bristles. He really never wanted to meet anyone like Froze ever again. At least now the red was gone.

His legs reheeled as he clopped into the wall beside his inky bed-table, spine hissing redundantly but he payed it no mind as he massaged his elbows, sinking into the fickle corner of his overly large room. As the silence quelled him away from his emotionally induced fit, comforted by the drop in temperature resulting from his oil lamp's animated death, and for once he enjoyed the dark cold around him. Goku allowed his mind to replay the words of unhindered wisdom Master Roshi once uttered to him, that there would always be someone stronger than you.

When Goku looked out to the wide shoulders of his window sill and far into the distance of space, he realised just how true that statement was. If he was so outmatched by a simple rouge icejin, Kakarot couldn't help but wonder what else was out there, lost in the great wide somewhere. Hours earlier the notion may have pricked excitement from within him, but now it only seemed to settle an unwelcome sleet of gloom.

Twitching his nose cautiously, Goku realised that his mood would not be restored if he remained cooped up within his prison cell, though he really didn't know where he could escape to. Generally he was actually far more free than most high-classed betas, Bardock always allowed him to explore the world around him, though with how mad Bardock was with him now, he doubted the warrior would ever grant him that once precious freedom again. He strained his ears to record any notions from his two parents, though they seemed to be unmoving in whatever them were doing. By some miracle, it seemed as though Gine had coaxed his father to slumber.

Encouraged by their inertia, his large black eyes drifted to the lips of his window pane. From just behind its skewed flesh he could see the smoke of night, shrouding and eerie, though very beautiful in its own eldritch way he was unable to decipher. Goku was no artist.

Hands on his knees, Goku propped himself upwards from his perch by the wall and cautiously tiptoed towards his portal of freedom, with each step pulling further away from the felts of his captivity. His eyes had by far adjusted to the darkness, scanning across the room for objects he could use to aid in his escape, though he also glared deeply at a velvet cushion with kingsnake embroidery as it almost tripped him up. He could afford no chance at awaking his father, and a large thud to the ground would be just the right ingredients to cook up Bardock's consciousness.

Decorating his walls consisted of bountiful gifts and offerings from allied lineages, like the herbarium wall arts his mother had inscribed upon their third renovation and the collections of various esotericum bamboo incense sticks he received last year for his eighth birthday, though usually settled by them was his now confiscated Power Pole. He frowned deeply at the notion of it being hidden away by his parents despite how it had saved him from what ever Froze was doing to him. Goku was rattled by the memory, instead focussing on the three-panel lurex jacquard presenting his path to the window before he could blow his cover in some incredulous way.

Goku sifted his undivided attention away from his partially unwanted Gucci implements and lolled through the air currents, smelling distant blessed water, singed smudge sticks and smoke from his father's herbosum pipe and expensive gold tapestries wilting with so much applied fragrance that they glittered. It didn't take Goku much to determine he was upwind and that parents were downwind. That was good, Goku assured himself as he trekked closer to his window. In the situation that they were awake, the shouldn't be able to scent him, and his parents couldn't sense ki like he could.

He strained his ears once more to sponge up any indicating sounds, but he could barely hear a whisp. After a few more careful moments, Goku was in close enough proximity to the window that freckles of light bathed his face in a shimmering white, tinting his tan a temporary glowing pastel. His weight leaned forward in anticipation as his fingers clutched at the window's frame, heaving himself onto it's fragile support as he felt around for the hatch. Once Goku felt it graze his fingers tenderly, he stilled, allowing silence to fill his room with its solemn body once more.

Kakarot breathed as his eyelids flitted down like curtains over his dark pupils, contracting as his ki spiked, ever so slightly. He stroked it until it was calm, and like a cleansing mist, showered it over his proximity. He felt it tickle the presence of a small mouse writhing about just outside his window and if he concentrated, the finest smudge of dust mites beneath his leopard embroidery tray to the left of him. Soon his technique spread to his whole room, than down the halls, within each and every cranny and crevasse of his handsome living quarters until he sensed Bardock and Gine's ki; levelled and small and unworried, confirming their slumber.

With a small, exhilarated grin, Goku popped the hatchet of his window with a distinctive clack and firmly slid the window agape, head submerging from it's gaping jowls like a cautious sea eel. Goku let his breath delve down his throat as he gasped the chilly fresh air, and he didn't even wince as it stung his skin like bleach and knotted his hair in its messy tumble up North. Though Planet Vegeta was notoriously sweltering, at night it could drop to freezing negative temperatures. He'd return, Goku told himself, eyeing the printed clock on the far side of his wall. He'd return before morning.

With once last glance down stairs in the general direction of his father, Goku disappeared into the night.

It was a sleepy, deep night, when the small cub had raced through the cobblestone winds of pavement, small puddles squelching at his damp shoes as he careened through the shadows of the waxen moon. Old Wiser Kukoomba way have seen the child hop down the street by rain-swollen gutters, listing and righting his balance each time he slipped, as he was wiping down his record player with a wispy Kleenex, or the alcohol-downing college partygoers may have spared him a glance and played the child running down the allies off as a grungy hallucination. Whatever the case may be, they would either keep it collected within their consciousness for as long as they weren't able to forget, or pretend until they lied themselves into believing they didn't have a chance at preventing the nine-year tragedy that would not have had to occur if they had just spared the time to call out to the child. Things would have been very different for them if they had followed him out of North Central Culterlot.

 **2**

He was damp from the puddles he had flicked upon his ankles, his hair was pulled back into a mullet by the wind and his eyes glowed like hearths despite the temperate climate. He had soon revolved from the open streets to the gluey, sullen depths of the narrow backstreets. He sailed down the arteries of Afscheid Street until he neared the intersection of Afscheid and Koppeling, the oddly installed traffic lights winking back at him drunkenly, sheeny from the small rainfall a few hours prior like a slicker, yet it melted into it's tallness to the night querulously.

Goku tried to ignore it, but he felt, behind it's three blinking lights were eyes that were drilling into the back of his head and filling the holes it made with acidic concrete, which was rather unpleasant, so he was quite hurried when he past it onto Koppeling. He felt exposed when not with his Power Pole, which was startling coming from the child who was fine toddling around stark naked.

It was when he tailed down Linkin Road that he felt as though the placards with the slogans that read 'Coupling New Spandex Fibre' were looking at him as well, raising the baby fur on his tail that still hadn't moulted like Rasitz's. There were about seven placards sticky taped to greyish-white service poles, but the placard with the eyes looking his way seemed to be the one most sponged from the rain shower. It was so wet the ink in the printed Vegeta emblazon had sunk down the page until the mighty red anchor was more of a wilting, red pomegranate.

Goku's train of thought was directed away from the mysterious eyed-placard at the thought of fruits, though he was subconsciously glad to be rid of the insidious gaze upon him once he had rounded another corner, plunging himself into another listed avenue. Not once did his speed slow.

It was when the caddies and receptacles and graffiti and houses began to stare callously at him that Goku finally realised something was wrong. When the wind spoke Kakarot found himself enveloped in it's carrion breath, and he whistled through the air resistance like a rocket when he felt something approach him. His ears didn't hear the clack of solid boots, the wind didn't bring to him no perfumes, but his feeling vibrated and rumbled until his legs worked harder to advance his speed. Now, the wind was both howling and whipping at his airily pantalooned knees, tail flagging behind him as a shout to all of his saiyan heritage.

Goku didn't know where he was, now, but it was dark and shrouded with crab-grassy lawns and almost boulder-like huts, and despite their roughish exteriors they smelt like soapsuds. Two older teenyboppers with Red Ball Flyer wagons strapped to their gummy shoulders watched him pass by them as they faltered from their flirts to see him run by. Both were slack-jawed. Edgy dopers hollered and thudded awkwardly as they suckled on an unknown substance through Pixie Stix like they were still children milling around under the chins of their parents. One glanced at him as Goku hustled by in a light of ki, feet barely tapping the ground in his acceleration. One muttered greasily about once running that fast from an overly clingy prostituted college student when she was refused pay, and all his friends laughed their greasy laugh but Goku didn't smile, not even a little. The cobble streets were coated in soot and pneumonia, and from a two-story apartment, a married beta coughed black-ish somethings into her hand before draping her body over the window sill, her husband of two years counting the nails on his fingers as he trembled, unable to grasp his wife's plight. Planted a few blocks forward from their potted property one stetson toting bumpkin was wrestling a blue-faced, leathered reptile into the ground with tears of exhaustion starting in his eyes but he, the clear victor, was smiling a little, showing his yellowish, horsey teeth.

Just as Goku felt as though he were about to take off to the sky he slitted to a stop, shoes cutting stone in his wake and leaving two long platform streaks across the ground, almost perfectly paralleled to each other. He looked around once more, big eyes large and fishy as he swung around. Where was he? As he glanced around at the compact plots of land, squished together and rickety like small sand-dribble temples, and the brutishly dressed wicks of townsfolk, Goku realised he was far from home. A few deranged zig-zags to the side of him would be a navy worn jockey sign with the words 'South Central' embroiled in bold new times Roman. Had he have noticed that, maybe he would have turned back. Maybe it was best if he never did, however.

He was blissfully unaware to the bewildered stares he was getting in favour of gasping at his environment, which was glittered with sigils and lanterns like a festival. Goku instantly took note of the vast stalls of vendors and political merchandise, some with little bleachers welling with treacly cakes and baklavas, while some were adorned in ornamental figures and richly coloured baubles. Unfortunately, the lickspittle vendors had also noticed Goku, who was garbed in clearly upperclass drapery. Their lips foamed at the prospect of conning a rich cub out of his money.

Goku, with his colour high and slew of names to his back trotted forward, meaning no harm as he wondered the cooping streets of third-class territory, careful not to brush up against any of the trench coats brambling by him. Was this where his father grew up? Goku peered about at the cultured stalls, waving about unionised beef skewers like buoys. He licked his lips as each stall passed him, and he had his hands laced behind his neck. Goku's mood was dampening as he realised he had no money on him. There was no way he would have been able to steal money without waking his father, he countered to himself.

"Hey... Hey boya," startled, Goku turned to see a corky, lean man motion to him from just where he was poking out from a huge concreted ally, which salivated like a big drain-mouth. The man was wearing a traditional black spandex made popular from the Lord Frieza's investment in the Saiyan's contribution to PTO except it's front lacked armour and was sewed together by big green buttons. There was a coonskin cap perched upon his head that made him seem like some estranged cartoon character. "Could you, ah... Boya, could you come here for a momen'? I need some help... I'm lost, you see." The strange man staggered back into the drain-mouth until Goku couldn't see him anymore. Intrigued, the cub leaned forward and began slowly towards the man with twitchy hackles.

When Goku was close enough to see through the thin veil of blackness lurching in the drain-mouth, he could see ladderlike slashes printing the walls. It smelt like almonds, not nice cooked ones, but bitter as though they were just planted. Goku wasn't unmindful to the alerts fluttering about in his tummy, but curiosity drew him on and the brooding silence urged him to speak.

"Hello? Is anyone there?" He started as he looked around the crooked ally, and no one replied immediately. There was no sound for so long that Goku jumped when the same voice from before did speak.

"Auh-ah, I'm sorry." The man wheezed, and only then did Goku realise his head was warped and skinny like a wavy window-sash. "My name is Mister Hootenanny," his voice was dehydrated but slow and friendly. "And I'm lost. Do you think you could help muh-me?" Mister Hootenanny insisted, trembling quite like his voice as he slinked deeper into the cavern. An inflated droplet separated from the roof and landed itself upon the tip of Goku's shoes, drawing him out of his reverie.

Curiosity killed the cat, Goku the himself as he watched Mister Hootenanny disappear into the near distance. But satisfaction brought it back, another part of him reminded.

"Umm, I'm sorry Mister, but I'm not from around here. I'm gonna go now," Goku swung around on his heels and began scampering back to freedom.

"Nuh-no, wait, don't leave yet," Mister Hootenanny looked as though he were about to reach out and grab Goku's shoulders, and for a small moment Goku thought that he would. When he didn't, the cub turned to look at him puppy eyed again. More moisture fell from the roof around them.

"I'm not supposed to talk to strangers," Goku insisted, though it was a rule he never usually followed. The man interrupted him.

"We know each other-" now Mister Hootenanny reached out for Goku's shoulder, pulling him tremendously until Goku felt himself stumble forward. The cub shook away the contact, tail bristling drearily.

"Not really, Mister,"

"—Hootenanny, you can call me Hootenanny,"

"Ok. I don't really know you, Mister,"

"You know my name,"

"That doesn't count. I don't know know your favourite colour, or what foods you like to eat, or what martial arts style you fight in."

Mister Hootenanny resumed trembling, and even his voice seemed to quake when he spoke. "Well you can tell me all about yourself, and me you, right now!" He insisted dumbly, and for a quick moment he was sure Mister Hootenanny's eyes flitted to something glinting in the sigil lamp light behind them, but Goku wasn't sure so he played it off as his imagination. Mister Hootenanny didn't seem so bad, but— Mister Hootenanny had began to deliquesce into the depths of the drain-mouth, fizzy tail sizzling like a thousand little needles around his stickily skinny violin hips. He was walking backwards, however, so Goku absently kept eye contact rather easily.

"I thought you were lost?" Kakarot began as he padded after his acquaintance.

"Well, I was, but it's ok. I hah-have time to figure it out. Right now I just wanna make some, friends." Mister Hootenanny smiled a little. The cub following him shivered as the shine of the orange lanterns was beginning to be downed out by the exterior of the drain mouth, and Goku wasn't unmindful to how far up in the ally he seemed to be going, as littered around him were rather large plastic trash bags and detritus that reminded him he was frolicking with the dregs of society.

Mister Hootenanny, once satisfied with their distance from the general population, sat down next to his trampy plaid knapsack and patted at the cobble in front of him. Goku, eyes ever wide and agog, settled down as comfortably as he could while watching his company with eager eyes. He payed no mind to his grimy surroundings, but, as the moments passed, Kakarot was beginning to despise the odorous air which smelt similar to the Oozaru Graveyard. Like sulfur mustard, or dim rotted vegetables. Goku frowned a little.

Noticing this, Mister Hootenanny quickly spiderwebbed over his knapsack and pulled out a light match with red wax oiling its head. He scraped it up against the driest patch of brickwork behind him and after about two and a half tries it was aflame, inclining the darkness into a pleasant honeysuckle. "So, where are you from, boya? What's your name?"

Goku glanced up at him, almost startled. "Um, my name is Kakarot, but my friends call me Goku. I'm from the inner kingdom, I think. What's it called... North Central Culterlot."

Mister Hootenanny had returned to rummaging through his badly stitched knapsack, holding the pretty match between his teeth like a candle holder, but he faltered when Goku had mentioned the inner kingdom. Mister Hootenanny didn't comment, instead searching through his backpack at a more improvised speed. Goku's observant eyes sifted through the junk toppling out of the peculiar man's bag— a tin of packed paraffin, shoe polish rags, a box of rosin with fanciful gothic prints all over it, a broken kerosene, a packet of tobacco, two mostly empty Pixie Stix. For a long moment his attention lingered in the baby blue Pixie Stix as if he were enticed into a sort of hypnotic funk, and suddenly he felt more shrewd than before.

Unease was quickly settling in his stomach, making him feel sick, so he patted it down absently. "Can I go, Mister?" Hootenanny looked to him in a kind of quixotic trance, anorexic hands stilling from where he was shuffling his knapsack.

"Why would you ever want to leave?" From an inner pocket in Hootenanny's unflattering satchel he slowly pulled a syringe filled with ogress fluid, a plagued green. "Want some topsy turvey?" Goku, however, shrieked, cold fear biting him like a fanged snake as his tail sobered from its docile swaying. Mister Hootenanny lurched forward and clutched the fretful cub's wrist, pulling Kakarot's shoulder forward roughly towards his needle but Goku shoved away with more force than he intended to.

"Nuh-nuh- needles..." Goku shook as he eyed the topsy turvey, stepping away from it vigorously. Mister Hootenanny slacked at him, surprised, but quickly gained his composure, shoulders unlevelled as he scrambled to his knees.

"Now, Goku, that's a rude way to treat your friends," The spider-like saiyan reprimanded, eyes soft and understanding. "Come over here." He asserted with a click of his tongue. If Goku wasn't frozen with fear he would have said Mister Hootenanny sounded welcoming and fuzzy.

"No, yuh-you-you're gonna- nuh-needles!" The cub breathed, stumbling to the far wall in his emotions. His mind barely cleared as his backed hands met the ugly, grease-stained wall, mind whirling and discombobulated and knees feeling weak. Goku could stand up to many things without fear: large saiyans, intimidating opponents, perilous adventures, rule breaking, but the day he ever faced a needle was the day Prince Vegeta renounced his throne to an icejin. Hootenanny looked into the fretful cubs eyes, who's pupils had warped into thin slits in his fear.

"Now, Goku, don't make me come over there and collect you." The spindly man asserted, this time fatherly firm as he took one warning step closer to his victim. Kakarot distinctly flinched, feeling as though he had the barrel of some super-powered pistol cocked to his forehead, and if he moved a beam would uncap his brains but if he stayed he'd just be delaying the inevitable. "I'll give you one more chance, boya." Hootenanny was wavering now. He was trembling again. "Come here and I'll fill your TUMMY with YUMMIES."

"N-nuh-ah!" Goku finally bolted, though not after releasing a badly aimed ki cannon that barely scrubbed the needle-wielder's rib cage from his finger tips. It whistled by and exploded against an exposed concrete pipe, drawing away Hootenanny's attention for just long enough for Kakarot to slip around the furthest corner unscathed by the abused medical instrument. Goku barely thought thrice on how he had fled in the opposite direction to the open streets, instead running by, wide eyed and panting, deeper into the depths of the dewey backstreet.

Running at speeds Goku didn't really know how to define, he straightened his tail like a flagellum behind him for proper balance as he covered more ground and leaped over various town limbs like old Piston waste and cog arms. Though he could no longer see Hootenanny and his needle, Goku was still struck with cold fear. The delinquently streetwise cub swerved around black bags of fat compost and dumpsters, suddenly wishing he was home, that he never left or at least never ventured so far from home. Instead he was a juggernaut tearing through the slums from an evil needle monster.

A large thud resounded throughout his makeshift running track of decomposing buildings, a large thud that was the result of Goku jamming his foot against a small bellicose pipe. His forehead hit the ground roughly, with a smack that could be mistaken as a hand against a thigh, and for a while Goku stilled, head pounding overwhelmingly. After a pregnant silence that lasted long enough for Goku to be sure Hootenanny wasn't near by, the cub propped himself up on his grated elbows. Instead of battling his swimming mind to his feet like he normally would have done in such a situation if he hadn't felt so sad and unmotivated, Goku merely rolled himself onto his back.

"A-auch..." It took a few minutes for him to blink away the black spots on his vision but when he did Kakarot was greeted with the shy grace of the moon. It winked back at him, but not at all scary like Frost or salacious like Froze or strange like Chilled. It was almost playful and happy.

Goku let out a pitiful whine and lifted his numb tail up to his lap. The cub absently stroked it, and he wondered if he had hurt it because he didn't even start purring like usual. The past few days had been too much on him, he realised. Everything had seemed fine, at first. The week had started off with his father and he visiting the Breifs, a wealthy noble house defined by their excellent technology, kinda like Bardock, and Goku had found out that his friends Bulma and Yamcha had gotten together; he had sparred with Yamcha a little and it was clear the former bandit had been training. He didn't spar with Bulma because she didn't like to fight, but she had her robot friends make plenty of food for him.

The next day he had played with Krillin and talked about their training and all their past obstacles. Krillin used to be bullied for his size, power and stubby tail, but over their time spent together training with Master Roshi Goku was sure Krillin was the strongest of all the Temple Warriors. Goku bit his lip carefully, not wanting to damage it with his puppy teeth. What happened with Vegeta, Nappa and the Icejins had come next. Goku was never usually scared, but lately he'd been running constantly, weather it be from outlandish psychopaths or outlandish psychopaths with needles. Goku shivered. Needles...

Shaking his head, the usually roughish cub clenched his fist in a Gordian knot. This was so unlike him- he had been fearing very often lately. It was, he contemplated as he finally propped himself supportingly on his kneecaps, most unlike him. He, who was usually fearless, had been running about yelping for someone to save him. This time, Goku had a deep frown on his face as he wavered on his small feet, unstable and disorientated.

For the first time since his close escape from the needle, Goku finally realised he was lost. And far away from the comforting lanterns, it was very dark. The hairs on the back of his neck pricked, feeling self conscious, and suddenly that horrible feeling returned– the feeling he had sensed from the bleary placard and the intersection.

Kakarot pursed his lips as his swerved about. It was the feeling of being

 **3**

-watched. King Vegeta glanced indiscreetly over his plated shoulder, sensing those unfamiliar eyes on his back once more. It had started while he and Vegeta and Geden were seated at the refectory table, awaiting their coursed meal to be delivered from the Royal food-testers to their mouths. Like suspected, Geden had been seething when he and his son had returned from their nighty lazing, scolding little Vegeta for what seemed like hours. It had ended in her breaking down in fat tears and coddling him until he slipped away and sunk into his seat at the refectory table. Geden had made sure they both cleaned themselves up, however.

Vegeta had been fiddling with the silverware and Geden had been braiding her dark, saturated locks when his tail twitched in irritation and he felt his fur raise. It was the feeling of vulnerability that had hit first, sending him glaring about the spacious room agitatedly. He had ignored it in the favour of dining when at that particularly timed moment the drudges arrived with their servings, but it had settled wearily at the back of his his mind for the duration of the meal.

The second time he felt it was when he had been overseeing files two good hours later. He was settled rather boringly in his study sieving through the last remnants of deceleration forums to label a small off-side but still rather profitable planet as doomed- a small team would be sent to purge it of its natural resources and fossil fuels in about a month, green house gasses be damned. Planet Quauy wouldn't be missed, King Vegeta promised himself grimly as he leaned back in his dazzling office swerve. They were just another back-water, communistic hive barely capable with intergalactic relations outside of satellite functions and conspiracy theories and Planet Vegeta was low on food, not that anyone outside of the enclosed council needed to know that. If word got that they were weak in anyway, their enemies would rejoice, and the saiyan race had a lot of enemies.

He inked his pen and used his free hand to steady the third last of the forums from the wind of the parachute fans when he felt an awful stare nailing him right in the back of his head like some sort of ineluctable, coppery werewolf. The mood of the once dim room pedalled onto a strange, gorged path, and suddenly King Vegeta became uncomfortable in the silence so unfitting to this book-binding rot.

The third time he had felt it was just as he were starting down his rich halls, reflecting on the unexplained circumstance. For a long time while walking, and as the eyes walked along with him, King Vegeta considered that perhaps word had gotten out of Vegeta-sei's apparently unhealthy ecosystem and sent out for inside eyes. Whoever it was had horrible spies, about as good as a disc jockey hooting his voice across every radio channel available. Perhaps it was the Neibolts, or the Caracatians- King Vegeta's eyes widened in horror and he twisted around, pulling a muscle in his neck in his abruptness. Perhaps it was Guppy?

Fortunately, there was no sight of the caracal amid the hanging portraits or sofa tables or carpets or pillars. Honestly, Guppy had been missing for about three days. King Vegeta licked his lips in anticipation, still half expecting a sly meow or blackened wired tail swaying like a barber pole. Suddenly, as if some upper entity had thrust their fist into his vertebrae, everything seemed to still, the lavish decor insignificant and uninteresting. Everything was fading in and out of focus. Sounds were dimming and hushed. The stare was now the only thing with him, and around the area once more King Vegeta sent a solicitous glance.

He belied a weariness he hadn't felt in years, since his prince-hood, where mornings were easy and afternoons and noons and nights were agreeable enough. "...Hello?" He called out, and his voice sounded suppered with lumpy mash. His throat felt like lumpy mash, too.

No one had answered, and instead, the stare had seemed to fade. It wasn't sudden, like he would expect from such a crippling moment of confusion, but more like the Loch Ness monster slowly disappearing into the depths of a tea tree lake.

King Vegeta didn't know how long he had stood there, pursed and unleavened, but it must have been a while because he came to with a visiting proprietor bobbing in and out of his view with a delicacy Vegeta found oddly fascinating, yipping worried coos in it's Pickaninny voice. He felt a rough prod in his side and craned his neck to see Queen Consort Geden leaning towards him, hip propped out sassily but she had practiced concern all over her slim face — the same beta that had once wished to live in a neat little Cape Cod with tangerine trim sniffing mint and meringue, pine and peat freely each day.

"What the hell is wrong with you?" Her voice was as serene as she was, a pillar of beauty.

"Fucked if I know," King Vegeta decided to answer with. She had gathered him up in her arms and needly directed him towards the oasis, clearly thinking he needed to relax, but as the stare returned when he was at the menagerie entrance, Vegeta knew he wouldn't be relaxing anytime soon. His calloused feet melted into the soothe of a small, watery pockmark, the bubbling artificial lubricant in it kneading away his worries as Geden settled behind him, slim legs crossed in a puzzle like way King Vegeta himself would never sit.

The stare had faded into the back of his mind again, something that the magnificent King would come to regret some thirty-eight hours later when a great tragedy would strike the Rudoeian Sapians and shake away what was once a mighty foundation. Sometimes King Vegeta could act as unobservant as he was reputed to be. In those last moments, time slipstreamed by as unimportantly as breeze-caught pennants or untethered balloons. King Vegeta was happy.

 **4**

It was pretty dark. It was dark when he had arrived home from his talk with his father and dark now still as he lay inert as a corpse in his quarters, wondering. Vegeta never wondered — he contemplated and thought and complained, mulled over and analysed. He sieved through memories, connected dots, and debated, but rarely did he ever wonder.

All his life Prince Vegeta had been in the know, knowing and being told everything he needed in his life, and destiny, as future king. From an early age he had been taught dining etiquette and what was expected of him both by the public and his bloodline. If he didn't know, he'd ask. As he got older, he was expected to know, and asking was unbecoming of a Prince, let alone one of twelve years old and soon to be reaching maturity.

His shoulders would soon broaden and his muscles would lace and define and hopefully, his hairline would recede, much like his father's had. Steadily, he'd moult away the fluffy baby fur cladding his tail and in its wake a strong, dense adult coat would germinate. His claws would wan from their childlike sharpness, his body rejecting their meagre defence in favour of enlarging his Ki reserves to sate his starvation for worthy battle. His puppy teeth, too, would be unsharpened in the next few coming years, but his canines would be upgraded to dagger-like tools, refined to the savagery of tearing through flesh. Weather or not it was of his enemies, his meals, or both, would be decided on the situation of his peoples. He would finally be old enough to join his father and Nappa on the front line against the Red Ribbons.

For now, he was stranded in his bed wondering. Wondering just who the Super Saiyan was; not his name or his legacy, but who he was. Bejita. Did he ever love? Did he have a family, and if so, what was of his home life? What did he eat? How did he train? Why was he fighting himself? What did that mean- to fight yourself? Vegeta groaned and supposed that a Super Saiyan really would be to powerful to fight another physical enemy, and that the only worthy opponent left to fight would be himself, but Vegeta felt an eery sensation burning in his belly, like he was missing the point of Bejita's story.

His father had mentioned he had gone mad because of his fury, but that was after he had ascended to Super Saiyan, so in the wording 'fighting himself' his father wasn't referring to combatting the steady loss of his sanity. Wondering was hard.

The small prince lay still once more, tucked in his bluish-greenish knickerbockers and feeling oddly like some degraded icejin plebeian with a stomach full of unleven bread and raw wheat but not really knowing why. When he bit his lip, (carefully as to not damage any of his skin with his sharp little cub teeth), he wondered if it was because he had been defeated by a degraded icejin plebeian with a stomach full of unleven children and raw wheat. Bejita would have been able to squash them as fast as his father, Vegeta bet.

Who was Velarius? Despite the soothing grip of his gentled room, Vegeta's breaths came out in droves. Vegeta wasn't exaggerating when he had told his father Kakarot had called to the god before. It was just one time, many moons ago, when they were running from Nappa as always. Kakarot, being a reckless brummagem, skited his tail by an expensively condensed vase import because he hadn't his tail around his waist like every other Saiyan. The two were forced to hide in a sleepwear unit, backs puddled against the well oiled timber back stands until Nappa quirked the door handle and slid it open— it was one of those doors that would audibly slide to the side instead of opening in a circumference. Kakarot squeezed his big eyes shut, breathed for some 'Velarious' to empower him, and with what seemed to be the most intense eucatastrophe he had ever witnessed, plundered his small booted foot into the small of Nappa's temple, knocking the poor general out cold and brandishing him with a burgundy eggo on his cleft face for weeks afterword. Kakarot didn't do religion. At all. So who was this object of reverence Kakarot called upon so faithfully?

Of course, he knew who Velarius was. He was the God of erotica, rage, clouds, dawn and ascension, though lesser known he was for his opposing traits- friendship, determination, loyalty and love. Saiyans always thought him weaker because of his drawn connections to friendship and love, most convinced they were mere miss translations from old sapionish of the campfire era. Vegeta knew it was no such miscarriage in the ways of wordplay, however. He was depicted to be a beta, much like Kakarot, and in light of his un-beta-like determination, was never portrayed as submissive and willing. In fact, he was accused of leading alphas on, weather was unintentional or not was unclear, and was repeatedly used as a blasphemous slur against unwilling betas within the third class community. He was incredibly powerful in the ways of Ki-manipulation. That was all Vegeta really knew of the god, not really seeing the point in learning too much of him. Velarious seemed to be more for betas.

The more important question would be, then, is what Velarious was to Bejita. They must have had personal connections for the beta to be such a tormenting trigger in Bejita's life, but how much so?

 **AN: On a totally unrelated note, much needed Netflix recommendations — The Get Down, Stranger Things, Riverdale, and a not on Netflix but must see- Straight Outta Compton. That shit next level. I'm sure you'll pick up the roots and relations South Central Culterlot will have will LA.**


	5. Goku Takes a Dive

**TRIGGER WARNING**

The green smog withered and seeped from each crevasse veining through the echoey tundra of rock tables, sullen and lonely as it sat placidly upon the earth. It was so far hidden from the mainlands, there were natives that have lived on Vegeta-sei for seventy years and don't know there was such a land of dystopia. But, perhaps, the peoples of the modern era were so tangled in the inveiglement of their own self-assurance and pleasantness that no one would think to go looking for such a disgrace upon the golden toil of their nation.

And yet, nestled between the ropes of monoliths and ruined geography ringed three unholy voices, each one as terrible as the oil heat rising from amidst the insulation. Laying back upon their toasty barracks were the familiar, toady faces of Frost, Froze and Chilled, each one making a commendable effort to occupy themselves from thoughts of their humiliating defeat to King Vegeta. The furnaced oil leaks around them buzzed, small splinter supplies of spruce and pine were catch-as-catch-can.

Frost was leaning back on his elbows against a raise in the land, watching his thin fingers glide through the air like biplanes. Froze was complaining — "man, that lousy King Vegeta, I won't be able to sit for a week!"

— His gadfly whining had finally promoted a whooping laugh from Chilled, who was mostly just wallowing around in his own little world beforehand. The defeat to Vegeta didn't bother him as much as his two more braise comrades.

"-Not funny, Chilled'" Froze wheezed. Chilled laughed considerably louder, jaws looking as if they were unhinged from their wideness like a python and it created small rolls of fat under his chin. He whooped and hollered until his laughter had dried to swollen gasps. Froze wondered if he had swallowed lantern when he began to choke stream. "Hey, shut it, cornflake." Froze tried once more, stare guttural as he forced himself up from his previous position and sauntered warningly towards Chilled.

When Chilled showed no sign of slowing his fit, Froze gnash end his teeth and used his pulled calves to propel himself forward, placing a firm, aggressive head butt into Chilled's unprotected chest. Though they were both greatly weakened from their battles and unable to heal as efficiently as the Saiyans, what without medical treatment, prescriptions and healing tanks, Icejins were fast recoverers and Froze would always have enough energy to slap Chilled down hard.

They rolled to the crippled ground in a scroll of grunts and contact, grappling and ripping at each other, bending limbs in uncompromising positions and biting at their napes until one yelped loud and embarrassingly.

"Will you knock it owff?" Frost finally hissed, eyes grumpy as he stood upon his raised ledge and glowered down at his two comrades, only kept calm by the thoughts of how he would love to mangle their pathetic little bodies until they were pulpy clots under his toenails and too inferior to be addressed. He was cunning, smart, powerful, attractive, and he deserved far more then the scum bags he had been contracted to. If only he were in the same place as Lord Frieza sitting atop that intergalactic throne, poking holes in whoever he pleased without consequence.

"Ay, hey, he started it!" Froze blamed immaturely as he peeled himself away from his daft opponent, their skin sticking together a little from their sweat. Chilled shrugged but didn't make an effort to clean himself up from the bedraggled state he was in like Froze, who had brushed his lap three-and-a-half times before he stood, balanced one again.

"Look at you guys," Frost began leeringly, empty eyes scornful. "No wonder we're dangling at the bottom of the food chain." He grimaced self-deprecatingly as he plopped down the few rock ledges leading from his original perch, light clangs echoing through the rocky, bland canopy as he did so. Frost wondered, for a short, quick moment, what his child self would think of what he would grow up to be. Little him would be disgraced. His family would probably stake him.

"Man I hate danglin'," Froze sulked, settling in a lazy cello slouch as Frost lowered himself to join the conversation. Chilled continued to waltz about, licking his wounds.

"Chyeea?" Frost rolled his eyes, but still managed to come to a stop next to Froze, who didn't really reject the company, instead opting to pick at a bothersome wick by the side of his nail. "You know, if it wasn't for those Saiyans we'd be runnin' the joint." Frost allowed the soothing flow of his imagination to wash him away from his devilish reality, imagining times where he would crick his back on twenty-four karat gold architecture, diamond accents growing up his boots in patchy profusion. Ice up his wrist, bitches up his thighs, cape thickly up his shoulders..

"Man I hate Saiyans," Froze grunted effortlessly, unable to find any stronger words in his rather short vocabulary to express his hatred for the putrid race. The insults came easily off his tongue, at least. Frost paced in distanced acknowledgement.

"They're so pushy," Frost began, chimerical in envisioning their punchable faces, just screaming to knock away their teeth, see how big-a-bruise you can welt on their cheek, how misshaped you can get their nose and how fast you can break it!

"And hairy!" Froze continued.

"And stinky,"

"And man are they UGL-EY," the two giddy Icejins serenaded in their gruesome voices, soon barking out laughter like dogs.

"Aw, surely we Saiyans aren't all that bad," a sickeningly calm voice had interrupted their fun, and both Froze and Frost choked hideously on their words at the interruption. They looked upwards, big-eyed through a throng of steamy output to reveal a leanly bred figure standing out amongst the shadows cast by the green oil lamp light. The figure was set like a clay sculpture, withershins to the way of the world around him in a way Frost nor Froze could really explain.

All three hyenas exchanged looks before sighing pungently, almost gripping their bellies in relief. "Oh Paragus, it's just you!" Froze sighed, a calm, jovial smile about his face like he had just filled himself with a wonderful lunch. Chilled dangled his head in a moment of serene calm, like he had just feared King Vegeta had come back to finish him off.

"We were afraid it was somebody important," Frost explained at Paragus's raised eyebrow, still heaving from both his temporary moment of fear and his burning lungs. His usually winsome voice was hoarse and ailing.

"Yeah, like King Vegeta," Froze continued, a smile pulling at his cheeks.

"I see..." Paragus pulled his neck back, arms crossed conceitedly over his chest in away that he believed to be intimidating and appealing. The three Icejins were still chuckling and nibbling between themselves, lined up in a messy zig-zap pattern they thought was military.

"Now that's power," Froze awed.

"Tell me about it, I just hear that name and I shutter," Frost shuttered.

Froze looked to him inquisitively. "Vegeta..." He whispered dramatically, and Frost rattled exaggeratedly, as if he were staring in a theatre performance. The three repeated their silly antics until they shattered what little composure they had left and began laughing unrestrictedly, true to their trickster nature. Chilled even balled himself and rolled backwards in his jest, squinting his eyes an smiling a wide, penguin grin.

"Vegeta. . . Vegeta! VegetaVegetaVegetaVegeta..."

Paragus grimaced and lifted his bridled hand to his temple, rubbing at it in a way that looked almost painfully hard to his sunken head. "I'm surrounded by idiots," he stated plainly, aware of the background cackling that was quickly elevating his headache into a migraine.

"Nah- not you Paragus, I mean, your one of us, you're our pal!" Froze assured, convinced he had hurt Paragus's feeling by their comments but not really good at expressing concerns that weren't really there. He didn't feel much for the middle aged Saiyan.

Oddly enough, Paragus didn't feel very validated by Froze's comment and instead looked down on them appraisingly.

"Charmed," he hissed with a roll of his eyes, egg head following his oculus.

"Oh I like that!" Frost involved himself, excited to add his own little mark in the conversation. "He's not King but he's still so proper," the cool palette icejin complimented, lifting his pinkie finger in a small mock curtsy, much like Paragus had done years before to King Vegeta after the little prince's coronation. Frost's grin was wide enough to turn his cheeks rosy with circulation.

"Hey, hey, did you bring us anything to eat?" Froze dipped in eagerly, speaking fast and almost incomprehensible compared to the speech patterns Paragus was used to back at the posh kingdom. Froze waggled his eyebrows suggestively, which went mostly ignored.

Paragus sneered with obvious disgust, nose crinkled as he looked down upon them. "I don't think you really (and he really didn't) deserve this," the commander referenced as he twisted behind him, only to twist back and reveal a tender, large mammal ligament, fluids and juices staining his fists and he grappled the block of flesh's carpet of fur and heavy weight, though it wasn't much a warrior like him couldn't handle. He dangled it teasingly above the three Icejins like some deranged cat toy. Underneath him, the three Icejins teetered and whinnied desperately, hopping on their toes readily for the first meal they would have had in days. Out in the slums where they lived food was incredibly hard to come by. Drool sheeted down from their lips.

"I practically gift wrapped those cubs for you, and you couldn't even dispose of them," Paragus's expression was a mix of many, ranging from sadistic to estranged to unsurprised all souped into one. He winced away from the bloody mass in his fists and held it away from his body as if it were diseased. With one last resenting glare at the wall behind him, his grip loosened around the meat and it plunged towards the depths of the three hungry Icejins below, disappearing under their desperately raging throats. Paragus wondered how a species could be so utterly poor that their tri-day utensils consisted of their own unpolished claws. He watched morbidly for a moment as a blood-painted Frost looked up to him, frustrated despite the generous gift he had just received.

"Well you ffknoewf, it wasn't like thfphere was a lohone scffong-" Frost tried. Paragus new he'd never know what the charcoal icejin had attempted to communicate in those moments.

"Yeeaahhh.." Froze agreed as he swallowed a rather large bite that would have given even the Saiyan lord indigestion. Paragus winced. "Whadda we s'posed to do? Kill Vegeta?" The red icejin scoffed as if it had been absolute gobbledygook.

Paragus leaned forward, grinning as if it were an axiom. His eyes seemed to glow like jack-O-lanterns in the foggy dark. They were the eyes of someone who found the idea of murdering their kin finger-licking good. All three Icejins, Froze, Frost, and the usually quiet Chilled all squinted through the dark, the cogs and pistons of their minds not quite creaking to Paragus's idea. Killing the King? Surely it couldn't be done, right?

Paragus needed to clean up. He had a plan with Lord Frieza to discuss.

2

"Hello?" Goku's voice was mellifluous as he called into the darkness, not typical of his usual slow, happy tone. He almost twitched at how nervous he sounded. Weakness felt wrong sliding off his tongue. Unfortunately, Kakarot didn't receive any reply from the darkness, not a lick nor whistle. Even the cool nightly breeze seemed to still tensely, as if it too were waiting for a reply.

It was then Goku realised that it wasn't quiet at all. From the urban sprawl around him he could hear thudding music and daft punk, and old juju beats and boujee kids rocking away their diplomas with

Three X, Pepsi and alcohol. To him it was the way whinnies and squeals of a summer-crowded dam must sound to a fish just blurbing under the surface of the water. The music of the pubs were in a world far, far away. It was just him— no, him and the stare.

Refusing to give up, the small Saiyan's large black eyes narrowed until they looked more like Prince Vegeta's. He could wait, would wait. He'd wait until some horrible monster, worse than all the stories and the theatres and plays and even worse than the Commies and and seeing Bardock and Raditz fight and shout at each other before his brother would storm away and slam the door shut dramatically after him as he left for another few long months. Goku deftly lifted his hand toward the blackness around him after only briefly glancing around and determining he was outside some strange, fat building that was famished by all the loud noises wiggling free from the mortary.

Kakarot frowned unhappily. "I know you're there!" He prodded, raising his voice for good manner. His tail was stiff but he fluffed it up so it looked bigger than it really was. "Whatever you are, you've been following me all night, and I'm sick of it! Come out and fight me!" Ki was quickly gathered in his paws, and Goku found himself having to put effort into keeping his fists from clenching and disrupting his energy flow. "Mister?"

No answer. That was, until he felt a slight shift in the wind, as if something that wasn't really there was moving through it. Goku's mouth hung loose as as he saw a figure shift in the darkness, with horrible, bulging back spines that looked like scavenged pipes from the yards around them, and beady, red eyes heliographing off the expanse of the fanlights swinging above sealed backstage doors.

Goku hiccuped and stood as the monster rose from under the city, and even though it seemed to reach past the dumpsters in it's height, the moonlight didn't glint off it's glazed body. Goku felt like he was half-dreaming, half-fascinating over the creature he only thought possible to be in his nightmares. It was shirtless, with rolls of pudge muffin-topping over it's high wasted corduroy slacks and his silly, goggly eyes looked over at Goku as though he might as well be enfeebled.

As if there were— and Goku took a bewildered step back at this— something wrong with him. Like he'd rollerblade home each day and have bombed baths listening to records you never end heard of. The strange being lurched forward, and Kakarot in turn flinched back, but his feet didn't move with his body, and he found himself stumbling to the ground and landing on his buttocks and on his tail.

It was distraction enough for the beta to recoil with a hiss, scrabbling to hold himself in a half-kneel and relieve his tail from its ailing. Just as fast Goku had glanced up once more, more frantic before, and come face to face with the monster from the shadows. He wanted to shriek, but found himself unable, instead wheeling back like a truck in reverse with dropped eyes so large Kakarot would have wondered if they'd get stuck.

The monster only grinned crookedly, showing its long, thick teeth so bunched together they looked like toothbrush brindles. The monster's face looked like it had linseed oil rubbed vigorously into its pored skin, and it's breath smelled like an attic or an old vinyl that was played until it was so scratchy it had been left in the darkest corner to the dust mites.

He- Karakrot, felt as though the air had been pumped out of him, and sand had then been ballooned into his guts like som deranged stress ball creepers would use to torment the victims they kept locked up in their basement. The small beta had stumbled backwards, unruly hair seeping into the dark of the backstreet, but the monster had followed. It's limbs hadn't moved, but somehow it had followed him backwards until Goku had clipped his polycotten Kung fu shoes on the first step of what a small stairwell leading to a door. The monster had no eyelids and no lips, like something had eaten them off.

The stairwell had toppled him off balance like a card tower of UNO, and he grazed the back of his head and his elbows on the wooden body of the the staircase. He thudded unpleasantly, and he felt dizzy. The monster from before, however, didn't relent, with it's horrible long arms reaching toward him. He had crawled upwards on the staircase, tail writhing to the side of him fearfully as the monster grabbed for his body. It's nails were long and feminine and had even clipped Goku's chin one time, which he had reacted to by forcing himself back with a large, awkward backwards lunge until his craned neck had met the door.

In Goku's moment of still terror, he had felt as though he had seen various gaggles of centipedes and worms wiggle from under the monster's tongue, and became distinctly aware that cluttered locks of wet hair were being pulled from under it's tear line like it was crying. What was different from his encounter with Hootenanny was how he couldn't move. It wasn't as though the monster had him pinned like Froze; Goku couldn't even shake or struggle. He just sat, staring into the monster's empty, lonely eyes. They burned with something oddly familiar and caring and pleasant despite the face wearing them. The monster's breath smelt like compost.

It gurgled like it was trying to swallow some horrible pink prescription, and leaned forward. The dripping fluids straggled across it's muck retaining jawline made him want to throw up. In one last defiling act of desperation, Kakarot's small arm recoiled - much like the Kingsnakes printed on his cushions - and whistled his claws across the monster's cheek, not chucked with fair accuracy like his usual blows, but hurried and forceful. If Goku had missed, the monster might have wrangled his face with it's opening jowls, but he didn't miss- the beta's small claws raked across it's raised head, swinging like one would a racket at a badminton birdie.

A billet-doux from the child coiled against the wall was enough for the monster's almond head to crack to the side, though it didn't cry or squark. It had four thin streaks of oozing green blood glancing it's cheek. Goku stared down with that familiar look of loss on his face, eyeing the botfly blots of fluid wedged under his nails.

The door behind him opened. His teeth clicked together over his tongue, and he would have hissed, if not for the large weight barreling into him from inside the backwards-mouthing door. He and his new company had been thrown forward by the force of each other, and the rather large weight that had interrupted Goku fell down, shouting, and struck his chin on the pavement. By the time Goku himself had recovered from his own trip— thudding his chest and cutting his tail painfully, his company was already getting up again, eyes slitted. In the strangers arms were various, poorly sewn rucksacks of the strangely smelling Pixie Stix he had seen on the front streets before. During the fall there was a spillage of them on the ground, some bleeding white contents onto the floor and the stranger scurried to gather the ones that hadn't been damaged. He stopped and turned his attention to the cause of his fall.

Goku looked to him, blood sheeting down the side of his face from a scalp-wound and trickling from the corner of his mouth. The stranger before him, a child, was garbed in sheeny junk jewellery, only some of the vast majority printed all over his pale skin looking authentic. He looked like a Twinkie or Ding-Dong wrapper that had only been half eaten and then left to be eaten by ants, and he had long, middle-parted hair lankly down his back. The strange child seemed to regard him as well, eyes narrowed hostilely, bloodied lips pulled back in a soundless snarl.

"What the hell are you doing here?" The Ding-Dog boy charted, bristling and looking like the crested alpha most little boys wanted to be as he puffed his chest out, but Goku didn't think he looked all that threatening as he scrubbed bitterly at the wound on his chin, smudging it across his youthful law line.

Goku bit back a cock of his head, instead standing stock still like a flamingo waiting for a healthy-bled pastel prawn. "Why'd you run intah' me?" Kakarot had questioned back, pointedly. Ding-Dong boy scrunched up his nose, casting a judging stare over his new enemy. The taller boy did a double take as he over-analysed the other younger cub, seeming like he'd accomplished something great. It was like he'd been practicing staring at people, or something, but Goku didn't really care.

"Hey, I'm the one asking questions here, beta. You tripped me over!" Ding-Dong boy frizzed, vibrating like an angry alarm clock. "Who even are you, anyway?" He had sneered, flushed from his tantrum, but still holding himself high. This cub was only a couple long centimetres taller them him, Goku realised with a scowl, but he still acted like he was a grown up. "And what were you doing in front of that door!" Ding-Dong boy had finished with a huff, crossing his arms over his broad chest and hugging his luggage closer to himself.

Goku looked back at him candidly enough, almost forgetting the monster until he remembered.

Kakarot whirled around with a start, reaching out with his Ki and testing the air for it's attic breath and oozing green blood but there was no such monster around. He opened his mouth to say something, anything, but was unable to produce words. He looked down to his still flowered claws and found there to be no horrible, alienated green ooze there, just grime, as if he had been rummaging through a tomato grove or a rotting orchid.

Ding-Dong boy seemed put off by the sudden lack of attention on him, but cautious about what the beta before him was looking for so frantically. He subconsciously squeezed the bluish Pixie Stixs to the golden regalia on his chest, and sweat gathered on his brow around his crown. Ever since he had left his father and fled from the kingdom and established a home in the slews with the beggars and the MCs and the povos, he had made an effort to be street smart like the many other adolescents scavenging for stable ground out in the tumble-lands. He had learnt the importance of body language and learning how to read such things— frankly, the cub in front of him could be read like a blocky three-worded picture scripture.

The cub didn't need a poker face to be given away as a rich bitch, however. Though it couldn't be seen in the way he carried himself, which was humble and earthy, (something that was most unusual for someone of his stature), or even validated by his excellently tailored gi, which could still be seen as apt even in the mouldy dark of the backstreets. The secret to his importance lied in his scent.

Saiyans rarely ever cologned themselves. Sure, they may scent the air or furniture or bathing water for aesthetic reasons if they had the money, but even the upper classes valued their own personal odour. It was almost personalised to fit them, an identification more valid then fingerprints if untampered with. If mated, betas would carry the scent of their alpha, if important or privileged, they would carry the scent of their successful lifestyle, if victorious in battle, their scent would forever waft in the nostrils of their enemies. You could tell if a Saiyan was nervous or confidant. Saiyans valued their scent, but sometimes necessity called for edits to be made. For example, if you didn't want to be identified. And this here cub's scent was defiantly tainted with a significant amount of perfume; not to much as to seem suspicious, but just enough to coat what would be the beta's earthy, China cinnamon musk. The nameless beta was important, and his reasoning for being so far from home seemed very suspicious. Was he being hunted down? Chased? It sure looked like it, from the way he was swirling around, searching. His tail was drifting about in the air angrily, but still pricked and unsteady. His eyes were wide and feverish. Ding-Dong boy might not know much about betas, but he was well versed in the equations of fear, and this cub was afraid of something.

It was strange, usually wealthy children ended up stranded in this hell hole because they were running away intentionally, trying to escape duty and responsibility, fleeing from their privileged lives like pussies who didn't know what they were getting into. They usually didn't survive a day, and part of him new this beta here wouldn't last very long unless he could escape back to the safety of richness and bodyguards. A male beta would cost a large sum in the black market, and he knew what sort of sickos would pay to have him in their grasp first hand because once they had been after him despite him being an alpha.

"Hey, what the fuck is going on down there-" a firecracker voice had called from just inside the door. Both Goku and Ding-Dong boy whirled around to face him, wild-eyed, and they were met with a wide, portly figure with a balding scalp and small, insect eyes. His tail, instead of being long and fluffy like Goku's, or muscled and cottony like the Ding-Dong boy's had been, his was barely a stump wriggling awkwardly on the larger male's buttocks. His uncaring, audacious eyes whisked around the area like a sweep-truck, flashed angrily at the scattered Pixie Stixs', burrowed into a deflated Ding-Dong boy, and finally slacked at Goku's own appearance, eyes wide.

His own stash of highly ranked karat gems and Pixie Stix he cradled to his chest had all fallen to his white boots and crumpled down the steps of the ridging stairwell, past high thighs and shanks which were overlaid with ropes of muscle and blubber, and past the pot belly that comes from a few to many nights on the town. His eyes, despite being large from his shock, were still unselfconsciously small, and Goku could barely read the emotions in them. Hell, he could barely read this thing at all, with his tail so short it couldn't even bend properly, and his beer belly was so shore he could only really toddle around like some unlawfully articulated doll.

"Tuh- Tuh-" the man had tried, slowly backing away from the door, grasping at the chipped, peeling grey paint with his gloved fists as if he really needed support to stand. His beady eyes bulged like Goku had a big fat splat of lunger on his face. It He used his left foot to support his deft lean backwards, and the other to hastily sweep away the expensive looking cartilage that he had dropped, as if Kakarot shouldn't have seen it. "Rah- Rah- dihtz! Raditz, you might wanna see thih- this!"

Goku froze, looked past the large, middle aged loaf with a startled look on his face.

"What, Onio, you fat fucking retarded rock monster. I'm too old for this shit, should o've stayed in college," rippled a husky voice from just inside the premises, — which couldn't have been Raditz, lanky big brother Raditz, Raditz who had stayed up all night patting his back when he had salmonella from eating those cranked raw eggs, Raditz who had taught him 'The Farmer in the Dell' on his seventh birthday, Raditz who had worked his ass off to get that scholarship into Vinnarna, the military camp of his dreams. "I worked my ass off to get into fucking Vinnara, but look where that shit got me." Raditz cried with a poppysmic of his lips.

Raditz pulled himself from the shadows, back groaning against the spandex on Onio's body, thick black locks swimming down his spine and shoulders like an '80s worn comic superhero cape. When his eyes met Kakarot's large ones, his face changed from madly stoic to horrified, like the sky had been reverted to huge smog clouds of gas and the water had been waned into oobleck. Phantasmagorical shadows were chucked behind him from the light dangling from the moon, making him seem smaller then he had appeared to be before.

"You tell me one more time you'd rather gobbledygook around with Kale and that gay ass yellowbelly Cabba. . ." Another voice droned, this one compact and angry like someone who lived a rough life and was picking on someone far more privileged. "Ohh, but I bet you miss that bitch Caulifla, huh? To bad Renso scared you off, huh?" He, another Saiyan, had stunted by the doorway, body folded like a pocky stick and he heaved a lumpy sack behind him, trying not to rip it in the narrow hallway he was forcing it through.

He was short, stubby, and bald except for the navy blue tussocks of hair germinating around his head like a flower crown. He was smiling a crooked, tormenting smile with prickly teeth and scars riveting through his brows ruinously. Like Raditz and unlike Onio, he had his wrinkled tail swaddled around his waist so tightly it briefly reminded Goku of a corset. "That's right, Black, Shorty told me all about your little hook up with her-erh.." The toad like alpha, Scarface, stilted off from his taunts at the sight of the stricken 'Black', as he had referred to Raditz as. He twisted his dense neck, alarmed, but stayed quiet as he eyed the recently noticed Goku.

"...Raditz?" Goku wavered as he stepped back, all eyes trained on his graceless retreat. He wouldn't run, though. He had run from Froze and his cronies, had run from the needle— he would not run from his own brother. But as Goku looked over the tall, peering dropout perched, grim-faced in the door mouth, he wondered if this was really his brother. Raditz wouldn't be here, Raditz would be studying and training hard deep in the crammed dorms of Vinnarna. What would this imposter be doing here, anyway? He took another step back, careful not to hit any corners by the low stone wall just a small ways behind him.

Raditz himself was very quiet, not really moving, and he looked like a scribe with his face all crumpled and unidentifiable. He felt like his throat was positively slimy with that medical taste you would get from using the aspirator to much.

"Kakarot, I- what are you doing here?" He settled with, trying to sound stronger than he felt, but as his vision cleared he finally seemed drawn to his younger brother's state; he looked like a mess, with his bloody face and cranked tail. A head ache was starting in his temples. "What happened to you?" He worried, stepping forward with a large thudding noise as he cleared all of the small stairwell in one big step, not noticing the blood dripped all over it or the spillage of Pixie Stix and gems. His heart panned when his younger sibling took another small step back, looking conflicted. Kakarot was still a puppy, still wet behind the ears, as Bardock used to say when he was 'slapping down the cards', who would run around the streets, happy-assholing around and flaunting the fact that he had no problems besides going to bed at nine and loosing pocket money to bullies. Kakarot had never even had a problem with bullies.

Raditz vaguely remembered playing with Kakarot, still ripe and bloated with infancy and looking all like the merry fruit loop he'd grow to be in only a few years. Kakarot had always had some self-decided problem with his hair, and had vented that out in every way possible; chewing it like a chord to see how long it'd last before it singed and split, grabbing and tangling it until there were knitted dreadlocks, pulling it hard enough to garner some funny reaction. Raditz would always get mad at him, then, for being a nuisance or embarrassing him in front of his friends, but Kakarot would be forgiven by the time he was half way through sculpting that pudgy, upset look he always made when he was sad. He had watched Kakarot grow stronger, watched him excel at his Master Roshi's questionable but valuable training methods, watched him receive Power Pole, watched him receive Nimbus. Worried about him when he wriggled away from Bardock's passive aggressive grasp and had masqueraded around the world, but held him still and far away from battle fields. After Kakarot's seventh birthday, he had only been able to watch from a distance. How long had it been since then? He couldn't remember.

Now here they were, two and a half years of absence later, and Kakarot looked about ready to either die from his inexperience of the slews, or bolt away from his elder brother. At least Kakarot seemed to falter at Raditz's broken expression.

"I... Fell..." Goku had obviously lied, casting a quick glance around him, weary and foreboding. Raditz new something was wrong. The air was heavy with Kakarot's fear, and he was beaten beyond what a fall could attempt. Kakarot may be jovial and naive, but he wasn't clumsy. He was a fighter, graceful and well-sighted, well-bled in his genes as a Saiyan. Kakarot wasn't a pliant child, not docile or submissive as he should be, and fear was an unnatural expression in both the air and on his face. Raditz quickly connected the dots.

"Who done this to you." It wasn't a question, it was a statement of how and who he was going to castrate. How roughly he'd need to unwed their skin from their body. Goku absently flicked his tail in Raditz's general direction, but didn't answer. He was eyeing the shadowed walls like a feline, flinching at the slightest noise, twitching viciously when Scareface gridded his chipped fangs together, intaking when Ding-Dong boy stepped towards Onio on his tippy-toes.

"It's not true, is it? You didn't leave Vinnara?" Goku had started suddenly, big, watery eyes turning back to his older sibling, but he knew he wouldn't cry. Raditz started, eyes falling to his tipped boots and shuffling under the weak scrutiny of his younger brother. Goku's gaze wasn't practised like his, wasn't potent with anger, yet it still ruined his complexion.

"Goku, I know it's hard to understand, but-" Raditz bit his lip, trying to connect eye contact with Kakarot and make himself seem self-assured, but he was just as bad a liar as Goku when the situation called for honesty.

"Is this why father gets mad every time you come home?" Goku sounded as if he were bordering hysterical, and Raditz paused, jaw feeling unhealthily slack. On a daily basis it was he who had needed to deal with the corrupt, duel with the law, and yet here he was, flawed by a sheltered beta cub with blood glittering on his left cheek and a bruised tail twitching erratically around his small feet. "I can never hear what he says, but he always sounded so mad! Tells me that you disgraced our family, but I never believed him! Never, not once!" This time Goku didn't step back when Raditz stepped forward.

"What happened to your perfect dream?" Kakarot had stumbled with the motions of his hands, speaking as if he were talking to himself instead of Raditz. "You, a proud, powerful warrior leading the army into battle against- against- the Red Ribbons or the- or- and you'd punch them so hard they'd-" when Goku had finished his attempt at explaining, he was already panting like a sinner in church.

"I know, Goku," Raditz had tried, still a fair distance away but edging closer. "And you'd be there, too. You'd be punching as hard as a fucking Super Saiyan, and it'd be glorious. I would be by your side, too. We wouldn't be fighting the Red Ribbons though. They- maybe they aren't the bad guys." The oldest of Bardock's litter struggled to explain, as if he were treading on firecrackers powerful enough to bald him as severely as Nappa. Goku turned from his nervous fit of glancing to eye his brother, whom was seemingly determined to defend the immaculateness of the renegade syndicate of the Red Ribbons; a band formed by an unknown black market crime lord to combat the alleged 'evil' of the upper class and the Vegeta Dynasty. Raditz, what with his fierce loyalty, had always loathed them, but, Goku figured, if he had already unclothed his dreams of graduating Vinnarna and leading the Machiavellian into battle against them, maybe he changed his views of the current reigning family and their loyalists, too. Maybe he supported the Red Ribbons, too.

"Remember that one night, all those years ago. When we were sitting by the hearth well past your bedtime and I was telling you 'The Nasse, The Bondens Hund and The Wolf'?" Raditz hinted, taking one careful step closer. There was only a few meters, a despondent marquee and some backstreet clobber mould between them.

"Yea'," Goku continued with a strangely absent nod for his paranoid state. "Wolf was trying to hunt Nasse from the pretty lily-pad-pond when the Bondens Hund saved him because the Wolf was evil and greedy and hungry."

Raditz dipped his head slightly, now as lost in thought as much as his sibling and clenching the spandex from his hips in his fists. "You asked me a question that night that always seemed to stick with me. 'Why is the Wolf always the bad guy'?, you had said." And it was true. In Tre Kråkor Och En Varg, the wolf was evil in trying to kill the three crow chicks, who outsmarted him in the end. It was one of the few tales that signified the importance of combatant intelligence, and how physical strength wasn't all that made a great warrior. The wolf was also malevolent in Scaardvark the Wizarding Krigare, where he tried to poison the lake all the animals drank from so he could feed from their dead bodies— in the end his plan backfired and all the animals mauled him to death, a tale despising the dishonour of poisoning and trickery. It was the same in The Little Red River, The Varg Who Framed Fox, The Wind Wolf Blew, Little Red Riding Hood.

"It made me realise the prejudice against wolves, when in reality, they are beautiful animals very much like us." Well, yeah, Kakarot knew that. But no-one really ended up hating wolves since they grew out of their fairytale phase. The young cub was unable to understand why such a thing would stick with Raditz. At the time he was only four and still thought degrading ways to insult ones mother was held in high regard. "Bardock is messed up. He's been corrupt by bloody King Vegeta and his shitty propaganda, thinking that you're nothing but a fragile little thing. Maybe my dream didn't lie in Vinnara, but here, where I'm free to fight, rules free. I mean, our dream was to fight. You, standing at the front sector, enemies falling to your might, challenging and wild and exhilarating-"

"But I won't, will I?" Goku seethed, and Raditz only realised how angry his brother had been in light of those few bitter words. "Because I'm betro-whatever to Prince Vegeta!" And all was silent. Goku's face was angry. Raditz was cold-toed. Ding-Dong Boy was staring, agape. Onio and Scarface were deep in their own worlds of shallow thoughts, and their eyes were hard.

"H- how do you-" Raditz tried. Goku cut him off.

"-know that? How do I know? Nappa blurted it out today when Vegeta and I ran off into the Oozaru graveyard and got jumped by a trio of Icejins!"

"You WHAT?" Raditz yelled, taking two, three, four steps forward and Goku in turn took four back. "What the fuck? This is to much- that little bastard, I can't believe Bardock wanted you to mate with him! Probably so he could get more fucking coins for his fucking tobacco-"

Tears were almost blinding in Goku's eyes, but not the type that would fall, even if he blinked. It was just there - skewing his vision of the world. He could still see Raditz's haste approach, and instead of taking anymore steps back, which only would have run him into the wall, Goku pursed his form and slipped into a tense, unglued Turtle stance. Raditz took notice, and paused in momentary confusion. "...Kakarot,"

"Uhm, Black?" Raditz didn't turn around to see who addressed him, but the craggy flutey voice made it clear it was Onio. Scarface, meanwhile, turned to his comrade in place of Raditz's unresponsiveness. Onio met his gaze, looking so frantic that the rolls on his temple matched the ones sitting under his potty chin. Scarface glanced in the direction Onio kept looking, and soon enough his own brows uprighted and he pole-dropped to the ground and gathered Onio's dropped cartilage into his own thinner arms. Ding-Dong boy hurried over, past the two cautious brothers and over his dropped Pixie Stix to see what his two older Saiyans were fussing about.

"Come along, Broly. Black!" Onio tried again, gathering a surprised Ding-Dong boy, Broly, in his arms and clearing the blocky stairwell with one swift gallivant. "Black, we need to leave," the portly fellow tried one last time, but he didn't stop his flee past Raditz, — who he referred to so un-fondly as Black — and instead whistled by him, Broly squirming unorthodoxly in his arms and bouncing against his belly. More misshapen gems and bent Pixie Stixs' fell from his arms, and though Broly stunted in his awkward struggling to try and catch them, he had soon needed to stop at the risk of dropping what was left of his own stash.

Raditz felt the air shift when Onio and Broly ran past, but he didn't pay attention because no wind nor forewarning would take the constricting away from his throat. All he saw was his innocent little sibling ready to pummel him like he was some stranger. There was a child before him with a bloodied forehead prepared to defend himself from his own brother. It hurt him more than Onio could know.

"Scarface! What are you still doing here? Get - the - fuck - out, NOW!" A new face emerged from the darkness of the doorway, his dark skin almost melting him in with the shadows. He stumbled briefly over the remaining stones of gold, looking at it quizzically, but at that moment Scarface had already given up on picking them up. Scarface shot up and bore his gaze into the other figure, nudging him towards the scene of the two brothers.

"I'm out of here, Turles, you can deal with them," the shorter Saiyan hissed through his chippy fangs, slightly bloated stomach not slowing him down as he too jumped down the small stairwell and onto the rough stonework of the backstreet grounds. Turles looked towards the mentioned pair with cheeks far paler than usual, but the late teen could only groan with despair at the blaring hold up.

"First of all, Scarface, don't call me Turles in public you fucking tennis racket, it's Blue! Thirdly, shit on a stick how could you let this happen!" Turles cried in the direction Scarface had ran, hot on Onio's trail even though he wasn't following his comrade. His exit was mapped out from memory.

All members of the wayward fivesome had disguised their scent, something that Goku had just realised when his brother smelt like expired water and gimp liner instead of stress, Red Baron pizza and boxed wine.

Turles waisted no time in getting down to business. "Black! Black, we need to go. Now. And I'm talking the whole fucking Machiavellian on our tails sort of we-need-to-go-now," the flexible Saiyan slapped Raditz's shoulder, unfriendly, and the larger Saiyan flinched uncharacteristically at the use of the word -

"Machiavellian? You mean the Royal Guard?" Goku's voice sliced through the tension, then pasted it back together but ten times worse. Turles gave Raditz one last look, so many emotions on his face it seemed to be sheerly blank. He took off down the backstreet into the darkness, far behind Scarface but still knowing where to put his feet.

Raditz wanted to be silent for a while, but knew he would be unable to as he could indeed hear the Machiavellian thundering through the club they had indulged, most certainly uprooting funds and hard worked earns in their quest to find him and his partners. He knew there wasn't much time left before they found the back exit, and at least Kakarot seemed temporarily thrown by Raditz's fear. It wouldn't do to be caught so early on in the game — Raditz had reason to fear.

"Kakarot," he started suddenly as he took a few large steps towards his younger brother. This time, Goku didn't make moves against him. "I'll explain everything to you later, I promise. Right now, I-" Raditz faltered as a loud shout echoed from the thrumming foyer of the club, and he cursed colourfully under his breath. He reached out for Kakarot, to grab his hands, but the tricky beta whipped himself away.

"Why are you running from them?" The cub insisted blatantly. He never really was good at beating around the bushes. "Daddy always said the Machiavellian were good, strong warriors. I always wanted to fight one. And they only chase robbers n' stuff." Once more, Raditz stepped forward and reached out for his brother, only this time, he didn't miss.

Goku yelped slightly as Raditz's hand rushed over his arm, unprepared for the suddenly more aggressive advance. Raditz thrust his smaller form forward, and his tail spiked. Raditz hugged the cub towards his chest forcefully, and Goku yelled and twisted in the grip but was unable to escape.

"Kakarot, listen to me! Maybe the Red Ribbons are the wolves," Raditz grit as he wrangled the cub in his grip. Goku was breathing hard and angrily, gathering himself. "And yeah," the older Saiyan continued as he spared one last glance towards the gaping door. He could hear more shouts, many shouts, both from the officials and the MCs being beaten. "Maybe they are the rabbits, but," and waisting no more time, the older Saiyan ran down the dark ending backstreet far from the commotion. Kakarot yelped in his arms, tail flagging in the wind whizzing past them, not used to being carried or kidnapped by his older brother. "But maybe the wolves aren't as bad as everyone makes them out to be." And with that, Raditz handed his brother's scruff, hard enough that Goku felt his world darken. A drizzly blackness was quick to blanket his eyes, and he was left to dream of a fiery hell burning down North Central.

 **Well, Raditz is finally introduced. Also, late update, but I was dealing with Christmas and all. Some inside unless you couldn't pick up the hints weaved in there:**

 **the Machiavellian isn't exactly the Royal Guard, per se, as the Royal guard is basically just relatively high ranking warriors that meet a certain criteria. The Machiavellian is basically the Saiyan version of the CIA and FBI combined. They don't guard unless it is the Prince, King or Consort they are assigned to (which is rare) and they only fight in significant wars and don't go on purging missions. They handle special stuff, like attempts as revolutions or mutinies or whatever. They deal with high-profile stuff, which brings us to our next point:**

 **Vinnara is a special college that only a select few can get into. It's hard to get into in you are in the second or third class as it is mostly made out of the majority of Elite and Noble children, but it's the only way to** ** _attempt_** **to join the Machiavellian,** ** _which is still of the upmost improbability_** **and graduating it is the only way you can score a high rank in the guard or as a solider. If you graduate Vinnara your future is confirmed to be at the least a team commander, like Bardock. He was one of the first third-classes in a long time to graduate, and following** ** _that_** **he raised his status to first class (just under elite), became and is a renowned scientist very talented in designing Ki attacks and his son is prince consort. It is exceptionally hard to graduate, however.**


End file.
